Invariants at fixed and arbitrary energy. A unified geometric approach

TL;DR

This paper presents a unified geometric framework using Jacobi metrics and Killing tensors to analyze invariants in 2D Hamiltonian systems at fixed and arbitrary energies, linking classical invariants to conformal transformations.

Contribution

It introduces a unified geometric approach to invariants at fixed and arbitrary energy using Jacobi metrics and Killing tensors, providing explicit relations and integrability conditions.

Findings

Derived an integrability condition involving an analytic function S(z).

Connected classical invariants to conformal transformations.

Provided explicit relations between invariants in different time gauges.

Abstract

Invariants at arbitrary and fixed energy (strongly and weakly conserved quantities) for 2-dimensional Hamiltonian systems are treated in a unified way. This is achieved by utilizing the Jacobi metric geometrization of the dynamics. Using Killing tensors we obtain an integrability condition for quadratic invariants which involves an arbitrary analytic function $S(z)$. For invariants at arbitrary energy the function $S(z)$ is a second degree polynomial with real second derivative. The integrability condition then reduces to Darboux's condition for quadratic invariants at arbitrary energy. The four types of classical quadratic invariants for positive definite 2-dimensional Hamiltonians are shown to correspond to certain conformal transformations. We derive the explicit relation between invariants in the physical and Jacobi time gauges. In this way knowledge about the invariant in the physical time gauge enables one to directly write down the components of the corresponding Killing tensor for the Jacobi metric. We also discuss the possibility of searching for linear and quadratic invariants at fixed energy and its connection to the problem of the third integral in galactic dynamics. In our approach linear and quadratic invariants at fixed energy can be found by solving a linear ordinary differential equation of the first or second degree respectively.