Generalizations of the Kovalevskaya case and quaternions (Q521537)

It is known that W. Hamilton introduced quaternions in order to solve various mechanical problems. In [the second and the third author, Regul. Khaoticheskaya Din. 2, No. 3--4, 72--89 (1997; Zbl 0954.37032)], the quaternions were used to give an explicit reduction process for the equations of rigid body dynamics. Furthermore, some isomorphisms between different integrable systems are revealed. As the authors remark, ``these results remained little known (apparently because they were published only in Russian), and, as a consequence, publications still appear in which the connections between systems that were described in [loc. cit.] are ignored.'' Various reduction schemes in rigid body dynamics are presented in the book [the second and the third author, Dinamika tverdogo tela. Gamil'tonovy metody, integriruemost', khaos (Russian). 2nd ed. Izhevsk: Institut Komp'yuternykh Issledovanij (2005; Zbl 1114.70001)], which has also been published only in Russian. Consequently, one of the goal of this paper is to popularize those results. In Section 2, the equations of the rigid body in terms of quaternions are obtained. In Section 3, three cases are analyzed in which the considered system in the previous section is invariant under the (Hamiltonian) action of the rotation group. In each case, a Hamiltonian of the reduced system is deduced. Using the quaternions, the case of the Kovalevskaya top is presented in Section 4. Also, some connections with some known particular cases are pointed out. In Section 5, the case of equations of motion of a rigid body with a potential that is linear in the quaternions rather than in the direction cosines is considered. Using a reduction of this system, three integrable cases of the considered system are presented: the spherical top, the Kovalevskaya case, and the Goryachev-Chaplygin case. A generalization of the quaternion cases of Kovalevskaya and Goryachev-Chaplygin is presented in Section 6. Useful conclusions are presented. ``In this paper we have shown interrelations between different integrable systems resulting from reduction. These interrelations can be used in the inverse problem, i.e., that of recovering the dynamics. Given an integrable system with two degrees of freedom, this procedure allows one to construct an integrable three-degree-of-freedom system possessing an additional symmetry. (In principle this procedure can also be applied to nonintegrable systems.) This issue is partially discussed in the book [Zbl 1114.70001].''