Solution

ID: past-exam-of-the-mathematics-course-of-the-university-of-cambridge/2012/iii/paper-20/2/ii/solution

Take the separate oscillator energies
They depend on disjoint canonical coordinate pairs, so
Thus they are first integrals in involution. Their differentials
are nonzero precisely when and have disjoint supports. Hence they are functionally independent on the specified open set.
To understand all further global integrals of motion, use the actions
Direct differentiation gives , so these are action-angle variables with
When is irrational, every orbit is dense in its fixed-action two-dimensional flat torus. One elementary proof samples the orbit at times : the first angle returns, and the second undergoes an irrational rotation. These samples are dense in the second circle. Allowing a fixed additional time supplies any desired first angle, proving density in the whole flat torus.
A continuous, globally defined integral of motion must have the same value on an orbit and its closure. Therefore it is constant on every fixed-action flat torus. A such integral has the form , with , by evaluating at a fixed choice of angles. Hence
It cannot be independent of . This proves there are at most two globally independent differentiable integrals. If a third global integral were independent at a point on an excluded coordinate plane, independence would persist in a neighbourhood and hence at nearby points of the regular open set, again a contradiction.
The word global matters: on an angular chart, is a local integral of motion independent of the actions. It is not single-valued on the flat torus when the frequency ratio is irrational. Thus the assertion would be false for arbitrary local, rather than global, integrals.

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