Bead on a horizontal hoop rotating about its rim Created 2026-10-05 Updated 2026-10-06
For a smooth horizontal circular hoop of radius , rotated at constant angular velocity about a vertical axis through a rim point, measure at that pivot from the diameter toward the bead. In rotating Cartesian coordinate system coordinates, . The tangential component of the centrifugal acceleration gives the displayed equation; the Coriolis acceleration is normal to the hoop. The farthest point is stable for , with small oscillation angular frequency . The pivot itself is unstable. This geometry differs from a vertical rotating hoop and has no tangential gravitational term.
The original PDF measures at the rim point , from the positive -axis to ; it is not the angle at the centre of the circle. The converted TeX omits this entire subpart. In rotating Cartesian coordinate system, the centre is , and the nonzero intersection of the ray with has . Therefore
The second form stays regular even at the rim point , where the polar radius is zero. Define the outward unit normal from the centre and the increasing-angle unit tangent vector by
The first two derivatives in the rotating reference frame are and . These describe a bead on a horizontal hoop rotating about its rim.
Figure 1.
The geometry of a sliding hoop and its contact point
. Original constructed geometry of the horizontal hoop: theta is at the rim pivot, and the central angle is twice theta.
Let the free surface be at and take the Newtonian gravitational potential to vanish at infinity. Mass conservation fixes . The enclosed mass is , and hydrostatic equilibrium requires . With vacuum outside, , giving
The pressure is zero outside. A prescribed constant external pressure would simply add that constant to .
The bulk Eulerian and Lagrangian fluid perturbations obey because the mass density is uniform and the Lagrangian displacement has zero divergence. The linearized Euler momentum equation in the interior is
Taking the curl gives . Thus every nonzero-frequency normal mode has an irrotational flow displacement; the simply connected space formed by the interior admits and incompressibility gives the Laplace equation . For a regular center, one spherical harmonic component is , with .
It is essential to retain the surface gravity perturbation of a uniform-density sphere. Although the bulk mass density perturbation is zero, the displaced density discontinuity gives
The Poisson equation implies that is continuous and its outward radial derivative has the jump
Using regularity at the center and decay at infinity, write
The derivative jump is , so .
Integrating the bulk Euler momentum equation gives for . At the free surface the Lagrangian pressure perturbation vanishes:
Combining these relations yields the Kelvin stellar mode frequency
The choices of are degenerate because of spherical symmetry. For , is a linear combination of coordinates in a Cartesian coordinate system, so is a constant displacement: the zero frequency is rigid translation of the whole isolated body. Such a translation has no restoring force. The constant potential generates no displacement; a radial breathing motion is excluded by incompressibility and a regular center.
The printed irrotational assertion needs the nonzero-frequency qualification, or restriction to the potential incompressible stellar surface modes. It is false for all neutral displacements: has zero divergence, zero normal displacement at the surface, and , so it is a zero-frequency displacement, but . This does not change the Kelvin stellar mode spectrum just derived.
Use the gnomonic projection associated with an undistorted focal plane. Write and rotate the celestial Cartesian coordinate system so that the pointing meridian has longitude zero. The stellar direction and an orthonormal basis adapted to the optical axis are
Here points east and points north. Intersect the ray with the plane . It gives , so the detector coordinates are
These equations also avoid spurious singularities caused by writing individual tangents or cotangents.
To put this gnomonic projection in the desired form, let and choose locally by
Thus . The denominator becomes , the numerator for becomes , and . Consequently
Use the local meridian chart , with chosen continuously near and at the image centre. A visible gnomonic projection requires , but this front-hemisphere condition alone does not select that meridian chart. A narrow field near a celestial pole can cross the opposite meridian; for such fields use the Cartesian expressions above and distinguish the oriented great circle parameter from ordinary declination. In particular, the small-field limit is and , with angles in radians. The factor is the shrinking angular distance per unit right ascension near the pole.
The magnetic field is . The magnetostatic Ampère-Maxwell equation is , so the curl of the curl identity gives
A gauge transformation does not change . We may therefore choose the Coulomb gauge by solving the Poisson equation . It follows component by component in a Cartesian coordinate system that
The free-space Green function of the Laplacian then gives
For a localized steady current density, conservation of electric charge gives ; integration by parts confirms directly that this integral has zero divergence and hence obeys the Coulomb gauge.