Solution

ID: past-exam-of-the-short-options-paper-shared-by-parts-a-and-b-of-the-physics-course-of-the-university-of-oxford/2019/s7/3/d/solution

For the quadratic Hamiltonian describes a simple harmonic oscillator with
An exactly circular orbit closes for every nonzero . A nonzero infinitesimal radial oscillation closes at leading order precisely when is rational. This condition concerns the cone angle: changing or cannot change the leading-order ratio. Thus there are no special nonzero values selecting closure for a fixed cone at this order.
At finite radial amplitude the system is equivalent, after unrolling the cone with planar angle , to a planar central force with potential proportional to . Its angle advance per radial period changes continuously from near a circle towards at very large radial energy. Hence the physical advance changes from towards . This nonzero interval contains rational multiples of , so tuning a larger initial can produce closed orbits even when the small-amplitude ratio is irrational. Generic amplitudes still produce a precessing orbit; neither energy conservation nor increasing guarantees closure.

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