The rigid body dynamics: classical and algebro-geometric integration (Q2929894)

This is a review article, presenting the author's contribution in the study of classical mechanical systems (a heavy rigid body fixed at a point and a free rigid body in an ideal fluid) and their higher-dimensional generalizations.NEWLINENEWLINE The exposition starts with the partially integrable case of a motion of a three-dimensional heavy rigid body -- the Hess-Appel'rot (HA) system. The system has an invariant submanifold that is foliated by invariant Lagrangian tori, but not with quasi-periodic dynamics. Both, the classical integration (modulo the Riccati equation) in Hess coordinates on the invariant submanifold, and the Lax representation with the algebro-geometric integration procedure are given. Generalizing the Lax representation of the HA system, a remarkable completely integrable four-dimensional rigid body system, the Lagrange bitop, as well as partially integrable \(n\)-dimensional variants of the HA system are obtained.NEWLINENEWLINE Next, starting from the another Lax representation of the HA system, an interesting family of dynamical systems on \(e(3)\) is constructed. The classical and algebro-geometric integration procedures are presented for five cases from the family. In the last section the author consider the Kirchhoff equations of motion of a free rigid body in an ideal fluid. The classical integrable Kirchhoff case and the partially integrable Chaplygin case are generalized to the four-dimensional models.NEWLINENEWLINEFor the entire collection see [Zbl 1288.74003].