Solution
ID: past-exam-of-the-kinetic-theory-course-of-the-university-of-oxford/2023/3/c/solution
Past exam of the kinetic theory course of the University of Oxford 2023 3 c Solution by
Codex 0 2026-10-25
Since , Hamilton's equations giveFor the spherical unperturbed Hamiltonian, ; in these particular action-angle variables the third component describes the fixed orientation of the orbital plane. It should not be confused with the physical azimuthal angular velocity of a particle around its orbit.
The conserved normalization of a probability distribution makes the expected value of specific angular momentum equal to . Its time derivative is the torque per unit halo mass:This follows either by averaging the single-particle equation or by integrating the Collisionless Boltzmann equation against , with vanishing boundary fluxes.
The term integrates to zero over the periodic angle variable. Thus the first nonzero torque is quadratic in the perturbation. Use the Fourier series expansions of b; the source's reference here to part (a) is a numbering slip. Integrating the product over all three angle variables yieldsReality of the potential energy per unit mass gives ; likewise . Conjugate harmonics make the total torque real. The sum is over all integer vectors, so no extra factor of two should be inserted.
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