Solution

ID: past-exam-of-the-classical-mechanics-course-of-part-b-of-the-physics-course-of-the-university-of-oxford/2016/4/b/solution

The required Hamilton-Jacobi equation is
Because and time are cyclic in the Hamiltonian, use separation . The remaining equation is
For , each sign branch has the separated complete integral
It is real in the classically allowed region , and . At a turning point one matches the ascending and descending branches. If , the integral is simply with constant .
A convenient equivalent complete integral, expressed using initial-momentum constants , is globally polynomial in time:
Substitution verifies that its time derivative cancels the kinetic term and . It avoids a square-root branch change when extracting the complete trajectory.

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