An ideal elastic collision between a sphere and a stationary plane reverses normal approach velocity. On the fully rough, tangentially elastic branch, the tangential contact-point velocity reverses too. If is the signed tangential impulse, translation and spin obey and , with positive spin anticlockwise. Restoring tangential translational plus rotational kinetic energy gives
The nonzero root is the displayed impulse; the other root is the smooth-contact branch. For , the map is and . It preserves kinetic energy and the angular momentum about the contact point, . An unspecified rough surface need not realize this idealization: finite friction or a dissipative tangential contact law requires additional constitutive data. Setting the outgoing contact slip to zero instead loses of kinetic energy for this uniform sphere.
Choose positive horizontal velocity to the right and positive spin angular velocity anticlockwise, as in the source drawing. At the bottom of the sphere, the rotational velocity is then to the right: the initial tangential contact-point velocity is
For the illustrated positive , the contact slips to the right, so the tangential contact force acts leftward. The upward normal force acts through the sphere centre and produces no spin torque. The tangential contact force acts at lever arm and produces a clockwise torque, reducing the positive spin. The weight acts vertically downward through the centre of mass.
During the short impact the contact impulses dominate the weight's impulse. In an ideal elastic rough contact, the tangential deformation can store and return energy; its contact force need not be a dissipative sliding-friction law throughout the collision. For other signed incoming states, reverse the initial tangential force if ; if , no tangential impulse is required.
Figure 1.
Contact forces and spin convention for the rough elastic sphere
. The arrows depict the initial contact tendency for . The normal contact force has zero spin torque, whereas a leftward tangential contact force produces clockwise torque about the centre. Details.
Write the sphere's mass as and use from b. Let and be the upward and rightward contact impulses. The initial vertical velocity is and the outgoing vertical velocity is . Perfect normal elasticity gives
The tangential and angular impulse equations are
For the ideal elastic rough-sphere bounce, the tangential translational plus rotational kinetic energy is restored on separation. Substituting these two equations into that requirement gives
The interacting rough-contact branch, rather than the smooth branch , therefore has
Consequently, with all tangential quantities signed in the convention of c,
In particular, : the tangential contact-point velocity reverses. The outgoing may be negative; the sphere rebounds backward when . Substitution also checks both total kinetic energy and angular momentum about the contact point, .
This result uses the conventional perfectly elastic, fully rough contact idealization. The word rough alone, with an unspecified finite coefficient of friction, would not determine the outgoing tangential state. For example, imposing sticking at separation would instead give and dissipate , contradicting total elasticity unless . The displayed elastic branch requires enough tangential impulse; a Coulomb bound would at least require .