Abstract
The resonant elastic pendulum is a simple classical system that displays the phenomenon known as Hamiltonian monodromy. With suitable initial conditions, the system oscillates between nearly pure springing and nearly pure elliptical-swinging motions, with sequential major axes displaying a stepwise precession. The physical consequence of monodromy is that this stepwise precession is given by a smooth but multivalued function of the constants of motion. We experimentally explore this multivalued behavior. To our knowledge, this is the first experimental demonstration of classical monodromy.
- Received 7 April 2009
DOI:https://doi.org/10.1103/PhysRevLett.103.034301
©2009 American Physical Society
Synopsis
Swinging and springing
Published 27 July 2009
Can physicists still learn anything about molecular motion from the classical pendulum?
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