Past exam of the classical mechanics course of the University of Oxford 2023 3 b ii Solution 2026-10-25
Work on , with a local choice of the periodic angle . The inverse formulas areIn particular, , , and . Their Poisson bracket isThe other fundamental Poisson brackets vanish by antisymmetry. Thus this is a canonical transformation for every , on local charts away from the origin. At the angle is undefined.
In the new coordinates the harmonic oscillator Hamiltonian isFor to be a conserved quantity throughout phase space, Hamilton's equations require identically. The two coefficients must coincide. For the usual and , positivity of selectsThese are harmonic oscillator action-angle variables; the action variable is .