Poisson bracketIn mathematics and classical mechanics, the Poisson bracket is an important binary operation in Hamiltonian mechanics, playing a central role in Hamilton's equations of motion, which govern the time evolution of a Hamiltonian dynamical system. The Poisson bracket also distinguishes a certain class of coordinate transformations, called canonical transformations, which map canonical coordinate systems into canonical coordinate systems.
Poisson manifoldIn differential geometry, a field in mathematics, a Poisson manifold is a smooth manifold endowed with a Poisson structure. The notion of Poisson manifold generalises that of symplectic manifold, which in turn generalises the phase space from Hamiltonian mechanics. A Poisson structure (or Poisson bracket) on a smooth manifold is a functionon the vector space of smooth functions on , making it into a Lie algebra subject to a Leibniz rule (also known as a Poisson algebra).
Hamiltonian mechanicsHamiltonian mechanics emerged in 1833 as a reformulation of Lagrangian mechanics. Introduced by Sir William Rowan Hamilton, Hamiltonian mechanics replaces (generalized) velocities used in Lagrangian mechanics with (generalized) momenta. Both theories provide interpretations of classical mechanics and describe the same physical phenomena. Hamiltonian mechanics has a close relationship with geometry (notably, symplectic geometry and Poisson structures) and serves as a link between classical and quantum mechanics.
Momentum mapIn mathematics, specifically in symplectic geometry, the momentum map (or, by false etymology, moment map) is a tool associated with a Hamiltonian action of a Lie group on a symplectic manifold, used to construct conserved quantities for the action. The momentum map generalizes the classical notions of linear and angular momentum. It is an essential ingredient in various constructions of symplectic manifolds, including symplectic (Marsden–Weinstein) quotients, discussed below, and symplectic cuts and sums.
Hamiltonian systemA Hamiltonian system is a dynamical system governed by Hamilton's equations. In physics, this dynamical system describes the evolution of a physical system such as a planetary system or an electron in an electromagnetic field. These systems can be studied in both Hamiltonian mechanics and dynamical systems theory. Informally, a Hamiltonian system is a mathematical formalism developed by Hamilton to describe the evolution equations of a physical system.
Canonical transformationIn Hamiltonian mechanics, a canonical transformation is a change of canonical coordinates (q, p, t) → (Q, P, t) that preserves the form of Hamilton's equations. This is sometimes known as form invariance. It need not preserve the form of the Hamiltonian itself. Canonical transformations are useful in their own right, and also form the basis for the Hamilton–Jacobi equations (a useful method for calculating conserved quantities) and Liouville's theorem (itself the basis for classical statistical mechanics).
Hamiltonian opticsHamiltonian optics and Lagrangian optics are two formulations of geometrical optics which share much of the mathematical formalism with Hamiltonian mechanics and Lagrangian mechanics. Hamilton's principle In physics, Hamilton's principle states that the evolution of a system described by generalized coordinates between two specified states at two specified parameters σA and σB is a stationary point (a point where the variation is zero) of the action functional, or where and is the Lagrangian.
Action-angle coordinatesIn classical mechanics, action-angle variables are a set of canonical coordinates that are useful in characterizing the nature of commuting flows in integrable systems when the conserved energy level set is compact, and the commuting flows are complete. Action-angle variables are also important in obtaining the frequencies of oscillatory or rotational motion without solving the equations of motion. They only exist, providing a key characterization of the dynamics, when the system is completely integrable, i.
Tautological one-formIn mathematics, the tautological one-form is a special 1-form defined on the cotangent bundle of a manifold In physics, it is used to create a correspondence between the velocity of a point in a mechanical system and its momentum, thus providing a bridge between Lagrangian mechanics and Hamiltonian mechanics (on the manifold ). The exterior derivative of this form defines a symplectic form giving the structure of a symplectic manifold. The tautological one-form plays an important role in relating the formalism of Hamiltonian mechanics and Lagrangian mechanics.
Action (physics)In physics, action is a scalar quantity describing how a physical system has changed over time (its dynamics). Action is significant because the equations of motion of the system can be derived through the principle of stationary action. In the simple case of a single particle moving with a constant velocity (uniform linear motion), the action is the momentum of the particle times the distance it moves, added up along its path; equivalently, action is twice the particle's kinetic energy times the duration for which it has that amount of energy.
ManifoldIn mathematics, a manifold is a topological space that locally resembles Euclidean space near each point. More precisely, an -dimensional manifold, or -manifold for short, is a topological space with the property that each point has a neighborhood that is homeomorphic to an open subset of -dimensional Euclidean space. One-dimensional manifolds include lines and circles, but not lemniscates. Two-dimensional manifolds are also called surfaces. Examples include the plane, the sphere, and the torus, and also the Klein bottle and real projective plane.
Wigner–Weyl transformIn quantum mechanics, the Wigner–Weyl transform or Weyl–Wigner transform (after Hermann Weyl and Eugene Wigner) is the invertible mapping between functions in the quantum phase space formulation and Hilbert space operators in the Schrödinger picture. Often the mapping from functions on phase space to operators is called the Weyl transform or Weyl quantization, whereas the inverse mapping, from operators to functions on phase space, is called the Wigner transform.
Canonical quantizationIn physics, canonical quantization is a procedure for quantizing a classical theory, while attempting to preserve the formal structure, such as symmetries, of the classical theory, to the greatest extent possible. Historically, this was not quite Werner Heisenberg's route to obtaining quantum mechanics, but Paul Dirac introduced it in his 1926 doctoral thesis, the "method of classical analogy" for quantization, and detailed it in his classic text Principles of Quantum Mechanics.
Poisson point processIn probability, statistics and related fields, a Poisson point process is a type of random mathematical object that consists of points randomly located on a mathematical space with the essential feature that the points occur independently of one another. The Poisson point process is often called simply the Poisson process, but it is also called a Poisson random measure, Poisson random point field or Poisson point field.
Symplectic manifoldIn differential geometry, a subject of mathematics, a symplectic manifold is a smooth manifold, , equipped with a closed nondegenerate differential 2-form , called the symplectic form. The study of symplectic manifolds is called symplectic geometry or symplectic topology. Symplectic manifolds arise naturally in abstract formulations of classical mechanics and analytical mechanics as the cotangent bundles of manifolds.
Poisson algebraIn mathematics, a Poisson algebra is an associative algebra together with a Lie bracket that also satisfies Leibniz's law; that is, the bracket is also a derivation. Poisson algebras appear naturally in Hamiltonian mechanics, and are also central in the study of quantum groups. Manifolds with a Poisson algebra structure are known as Poisson manifolds, of which the symplectic manifolds and the Poisson–Lie groups are a special case. The algebra is named in honour of Siméon Denis Poisson.
Stochastic geometryIn mathematics, stochastic geometry is the study of random spatial patterns. At the heart of the subject lies the study of random point patterns. This leads to the theory of spatial point processes, hence notions of Palm conditioning, which extend to the more abstract setting of random measures. There are various models for point processes, typically based on but going beyond the classic homogeneous Poisson point process (the basic model for complete spatial randomness) to find expressive models which allow effective statistical methods.
Poisson's equationPoisson's equation is an elliptic partial differential equation of broad utility in theoretical physics. For example, the solution to Poisson's equation is the potential field caused by a given electric charge or mass density distribution; with the potential field known, one can then calculate electrostatic or gravitational (force) field. It is a generalization of Laplace's equation, which is also frequently seen in physics. The equation is named after French mathematician and physicist Siméon Denis Poisson.
SymplectomorphismIn mathematics, a symplectomorphism or symplectic map is an isomorphism in the of symplectic manifolds. In classical mechanics, a symplectomorphism represents a transformation of phase space that is volume-preserving and preserves the symplectic structure of phase space, and is called a canonical transformation. A diffeomorphism between two symplectic manifolds is called a symplectomorphism if where is the pullback of . The symplectic diffeomorphisms from to are a (pseudo-)group, called the symplectomorphism group (see below).
