Signatures of physical constraints in rotating rigid bodies

TL;DR

This paper investigates how physical constraints influence the rotational behavior of rigid bodies, revealing that moments of inertia can be characterized by observable phenomena like the Montgomery Phase and Tennis Racket Effect.

Contribution

It introduces analytical methods to detect the physical or non-physical nature of moments of inertia through qualitative changes in specific rotational effects.

Findings

Moments of inertia affect the Montgomery Phase and Tennis Racket Effect.

Qualitative changes in these effects indicate physical constraints.

Analytical detection methods for inertia properties are proposed.

Abstract

We study signatures of physical constraints on free rotations of rigid bodies. We show analytically that the physical or non-physical nature of the moments of inertia of a system can be detected by qualitative changes both in the Montgomery Phase and in the Tennis Racket Effect.