Use for the gravitational parameter, to distinguish it from the Delaunay action called . The displayed actions are per unit reduced mass. Accordingly use specific canonical momenta; with physical relative momenta, all three actions acquire a common reduced-mass factor, which leaves the eccentricity fraction below unchanged.
The canonical transformation. In spherical coordinates, separation of the Kepler Hamilton-Jacobi equation gives
A local type-two generating function, continued across turning points with the appropriate momentum branches, is
The old momenta are and the new angles are , , . This defines a canonical transformation, since its generating differential is . With standard choices of angle origins, the resulting Delaunay variables are
with the mean anomaly, the argument of periapsis, and the longitude of ascending node. In particular, the signed includes retrograde orbits; the squared equation in the PDF must not be read as .
For bound noncollision Kepler orbits, the independent ranges are
The limiting circular, radial and coplanar cases sit on boundaries where some angle charts degenerate. They have zero measure in the generic phase-volume calculation. The ranges are constrained as above, rather than a Cartesian box with three unconstrained actions.
The eccentricity count. A canonical transformation preserves phase space volume, so
Integrating the three angles contributes , and integrating gives . At fixed , the condition that the orbital eccentricity be less than is . Thus
Any energy weight cancels between these integrals. If the total population is finite, or an explicit finite action band is used,
This is the Delaunay phase-volume proof of the thermal eccentricity distribution. The source's law is a cumulative count, not a differential eccentricity density. Also, pointwise finite does not alone imply finite : gives . The finite normalization of an energy-only Kepler distribution is the additional condition needed for a global probability statement; the fraction at every fixed energy is unaffected.
Why the observation does not imply relaxation or equilibrium. No Boltzmann distribution was used: every normalizable energy-only phase-space distribution function has the same eccentricity marginal, irrespective of collisional thermalization. An even stronger counterexample is a genuinely time-dependent collisionless distribution
Kepler motion has and constant actions and other angles, so : this is an exact nonstationary solution of the Collisionless Boltzmann equation. Integrating removes the cosine and leaves precisely the same cumulative count at every time. An eccentricity marginal alone cannot establish thermal relaxation, a relaxed age, or even a stationary distribution.