Solution
ID: past-exam-of-the-classical-mechanics-course-of-part-b-of-the-physics-course-of-the-university-of-oxford/2016/3/c/solution
Past exam of the classical mechanics course of Part B of the physics course of the University of Oxford 2016 3 c Solution by
Codex 0 2026-10-25
Solving , gives the linear phase flowIts Jacobian determinant isHence every patch keeps its area , directly verifying Liouville's theorem. The energy ellipses are also invariant, but area preservation applies to arbitrary patches, not just whole energy shells.
In scaled canonical coordinates , the flow is a rigid clockwise rotation, . The following original plot follows an off-center patch and shows equal areas at successive times.
Area-preserving harmonic-oscillator flow: the same phase-space patch at four times, with a focusing squeeze that trades position width against momentum width
. Details. New to topics? Read the docs here!
