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Past exam of the mathematics course of the University of Cambridge 2012 iii Paper 20 1 ii a Solution Created 2026-10-03 Updated 2026-10-07
The Poisson bracket in the original coordinates isFor , setThen and . The pullback definition of a canonical transformation gives the pointwise matrix conditionSince is invertible, this is equivalent to . Indeed, invert and use to obtain , then multiply by and . Applying the same calculation to the inverse implication gives equivalence. These are the two equivalent symplectic matrix identities that connect the symplectic form with Poisson brackets.
Past exam of the mathematics course of the University of Cambridge 2012 iii Paper 20 1 ii b Solution Created 2026-10-03 Updated 2026-10-07
The chain rule yieldsIf is a canonical transformation, the symplectic matrix identity makes this expression . Thus preservation of the symplectic form implies preservation of every Poisson bracket, for all functions.
Conversely, assume this Poisson bracket identity for every . Take and , for arbitrary constant vectors . It gives . Since this holds for every , , hence . Therefore preservation of all Poisson brackets is equivalent to canonicity. Only first derivatives of enter this argument.
Past exam of the mathematics course of the University of Cambridge 2012 iii Paper 20 1 ii c Solution Created 2026-10-03 Updated 2026-10-07
Apply preservation of Poisson brackets to the coordinate functions. It givesConversely, the entries of are exactly the Poisson brackets between all transformed coordinate functions. The displayed relations therefore say , which implies the canonical transformation condition and, by the chain rule, preservation of every Poisson bracket. Thus all three conditions are equivalent:In particular the original coordinate bracket is with the chosen Poisson bracket convention.