Homework #6 — PHYS 601 — Fall 2014 Professor Victor Yakovenko

Due on Thursday, October 27, 2014 online Office: 2115 Physics

Web page: http://physics.umd.edu/~yakovenk/teaching/
GPS: Goldstein, Poole, Safko, Classical Mechanics, 3rd edition, 2002, ISBN 0-201-65702-3
LL: Landau and Lifshitz, Mechanics, 3rd edition, 1976, ISBN 978-0-7506-2896-9
Total score is 40 points.

The Kinematics of Rigid Body Motion, GPS Ch. 4

1. Problem GPS 4.14, 15 points. Identities for antisymmetric tensors.
Do Part (b) first, because it is easier. Additional question to Part (b): Show that
ijk ijk = 6.
Then do Part (a). Additional questions: Using the formula derived in Part (a),
prove the following vector relations
(A × B) · (C × D) = (A · C) (B · D) − (A · D) (B · C) (1)
A × (B × C) = B (A · C) − C (A · B) (2)
(A × B) × (C × D) = [A · (B × D)] C − [A · (B × C)] D (3)

2. Commutation relations for angular momentum, 15 points.

(a) Problem 4.17. Verify commutation relations for the generators of rotation M̂i
in GPS Eqs. (4.79) and (4.80). Here I use the hat to indicate that M̂i is a matrix,
whereas the index i indicates that there are three such matrices. Compare with the
commutation relations of the angular momentum operator in quantum mechanics.

Additional questions:
The Poisson bracket [f, g] of two functions f and g is defined in LL Eq. (42.5) and
GPS Eq. (9.67) as
∂f ∂g ∂f ∂g
[f, g] = − , (4)
∂rk ∂pk ∂pk ∂rk
where summation of the repeated index k is implied in tensor notation.

(b) Let us introduce the angular momentum Li = (r × p)i = ijk rj pk , the infinites-
imal angles of rotation δφ, and the scalar product δφ · L = δφj Lj . Calculate
explicitly the Poisson brackets in the following equations in tensor notation and
show that they give the right-hand sides of these equations, in agreement with
GPS Eq. (4.75)
δr = [r, δφ · L] = r × δφ, δp = [p, δφ · L] = p × δφ. (5)
Here the angles δφ are constant parameters, which do not depend on r and p, so
they are not subject to differentiation in the Poisson brackets. Thus, the angular
momentum L is the generator of rotations via the Poisson brackets in Eq. (5).
2 Homework #6, Phys601, Fall 2014, Prof. Yakovenko

(c) Calculate the Poisson brackets between different components of the angular mo-
mentum L = r × p and prove the following relation

[Li , Lj ] = ijk Lk . (6)

Compare Eq. (6) with the commutation relations of the angular momentum op-
erator in quantum mechanics.

3. Inspired by Problem 4.10, 10 points. Don’t do Problem 4.10; only answer the
questions below.
Let us denote by R̂z (φ) the matrix of rotation around the axis z by the angle φ. Then,
a rotation by φ + dφ is a composition of two rotations: R̂z (φ + dφ) = R̂z (dφ) R̂z (φ),
where R̂z (dφ) = 1̂ + M̂z dφ. Here I used the equation above GPS Eq. (4.79) and the
equation above GPS Eq. (4.68) with the change of notation A → R̂.

(a) Introducing the notation dR̂z (φ) = R̂z (φ + dφ) − R̂z (φ), show that the rotation
matrix satisfies the following differential equation:

dR̂z (φ)
= M̂z R̂z (φ). (7)
dφ
Show that the solution of this equation is
∞
(M̂z φ)n
R̂z (φ) = eM̂z φ =
X
. (8)
n=0 n!
!
0 −1
(b) Let us denote by m̂z = the (x, y) part of the matrix M̂z in Eq. (4.79).
1 0
(The third column and row of M̂z are trivial and decouple from the first two.)
Show that
m̂2z = −1̂, m̂3z = −m̂z , m̂4z = 1̂. (9)
(c) Using Eq. (9) in Eq. (8), show that
 
cos φ − sin φ 0
R̂z (φ) =  sin φ cos φ 0  , (10)
 

0 0 1

in agreement with GPS Eq. (4.43). (Never mind the difference in the sign of φ.)

October 20, 2014