Rigid body dynamics. A Lagrangian approach (Q2669999)

It is well known that rigid body dynamics is one of the oldest and most interesting subjects in classical mechanics. Initiated by Euler, who formulated the equations of motion for a general (asymmetric) torque-free body and obtained the first integrable, in quadratures, case known after his name, the study of dynamics was continued by D'Alembert, Poinsot, Lagrange and Poisson, the equations of motion of a body about a fixed point under the action of forces were written in their present form, known as the Euler-Poisson equations, given by a system of six first-order differential equations for which three integrals are known. Later, Lagrange found the second integrable case of a heavy axi-symmetric body, usually named as Lagrange's top. In both cases of Euler and Lagrange, an integral of motion followed from general principles of mechanics. Another important moment consisted in the solving the equations of motion, with the solutions expressed through elliptic functions, invented by Jacobi, and certain integrals involving them. A whole century later, S. Kovalevskaya found a new integrable case of the heavy rigid body and also reduced the problem to quadratures and expressed all the dynamical variables in terms of hyper-elliptic functions of time, which are far more complicated than elliptic functions, but share with them the property of having only poles as singular points in the complex plane. The last quarter of the nineteenth century was a golden era for rigid body dynamics. More complicated problems, including some generalizations of the classical problem, were studied. Regarding this monograph, it seems that two reasons led to its writing. The first and foremost, there was a need for a new survey on the subject of rigid body dynamics, including the classification and a complete up-to-date account of all the known (but scattered in the literature) integrable cases and particular solutions of diverse problems treated within this subject. The second motivation was to showcase some novel methods developed by the author that have led to important results and to new collection of integrable cases in rigid body dynamics. The book is divided into two parts. The first part contains the elementary part and can be regarded mainly as a course on rigid body dynamics, including Chapters 1--7. The second part of the book contains mostly new research material that was not compiled before in book form. In Chapter 8, the basic information and results about all the twelve known exact particular solutions of the equations of motion in classical problems are presented. In Chapter 9, the analogy between the motion of a rigid body about a fixed point and the problem of motion of a particle on a smooth ellipsoid are considered. Chapter 10 is devoted to the problem of motion of a body by inertia in an ideal incompressible fluid extending to infinity in all directions. The Lagrangian approach is presented in Chapter 11. In Chapter 12, a quite complicated integrable cases, involving large numbers of parameters, were constructed. A full list of the known up-to-date conditional integrable cases of the problem of motion of a rigid body is given in Chapter 13. Chapter 14 is devoted to a systematic presentation of the actual status of the problem of motion of a rigid body about a fixed point under the action of an asymmetric combination of potential and gyroscopic forces. This book is intended to be a reference book for integrable cases and exact solutions. It can be useful to readers of different mathematical backgrounds: students, mathematicians, physicists or engineers.