LEARNING OUTCOMES

The principal aim of the course is to give to the student the knoweledge of Lagrangian an Hamiltonian mechanics.

Furthermore, the student is beleived to acquire the ability of resolving typical probelms of classical mechanics by means of the theoretical instruments furnished by the Lagrangian and Hamiltonian mechanics.

AIMS AND LEARNING OUTCOMES

At the end of the learing path the student will be able to:

- describe the foundations of the Lagrangian and Hamiltonian formulation of classical mechanics

- describe the dynamics of classical systems by means of the Euler-Lagrange equation

- find the equilibrium configurations of Lagrangian systems

- analyze the stability of the equilibrium configurations of these systems

- formulate the equation of motion in the case of Hamiltonian mechanics

- know and use the canonical transforamtions

- know some advanced techniques to solve some motion equations like those furnished by the Hamilton-Jacobi equation

- characterize the studied equation of motion by means of some variational principles

TEACHING METHODS

The course are organized in lectures given by the teachers where the theoretical part it will be presented and where its application to the resulutions of some exercises will be discussed.

SYLLABUS/CONTENT

Introduction and some basic concepts

• Spacetime of the classical mechanics

Analytical mechanics of holonomic systems

• Holonomic systems and ideal constraints
• Euler-Lagrange equations
• Lagrange equation and balance equations
• Integrals of motion in the Lagrangian formalism

Introduction to stability of dynamical systems

• Equilibrium solution, critical points and their stability
• Small oscillations for a mechanical systems

Hamiltonian mechanics

• Legendre transformation and Hamilton's equations
• Poisson brackets
• Canonical transformations and generating functions
• Transformation law for the Hamiltonian 
• Hamilton-Jacobi equation

Variational principles

• Lagrangian case and Hamiltonian case
• Canonical transformations and covariance of the action functional

RECOMMENDED READING/BIBLIOGRAPHY

The notes of the course will be made available within aul@web.

Further deeper suggested readings:

1) H. Goldstein, C. Poole, J. Safko, “Classical Mechanics”, 3rd edn. Addison-Wesley, San Francisco, (2002).

2) V. I. Arnold “Metodi Matematici della Meccanica Classica” Editori Riuniti University Press, (2010).