HAMILTONIANS FOR HARMONIC OSCILLATORS

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Post date: 17 September 2021.
Here are a couple of examples of equations of motion using the Hamil-
tonian formalism.

Example 1. First, we look at the simple harmonic oscillator, in which we

have a mass m sliding on a frictionless horizontal surface. The mass is
connected to a spring with constant k, with the other end of the spring con-
nected to a fixed support.
The Hamiltonian is given by

H (q, p) = ∑ pi q̇i − L (q, q̇) (1)

i

where the velocities q̇i are expressed in terms of the positions qi and mo-
menta pi . In this case, we have, using the coordinate x as the displacement
from equilibrium

1 1
L (x, ẋ) = mẋ2 − kx2 (2)
2 2
∂L
p= = mẋ (3)
∂ ẋ
p
ẋ = (4)
m
p2 1
L (x, ẋ (x, p)) = − kx2 (5)
2m 2
p2
 2 
p 1 2
H= − − kx (6)
m 2m 2
p2 1
= + kx2 (7)
2m 2

We can now apply Hamilton’s canonical equations:

1
 HAMILTONIANS FOR HARMONIC OSCILLATORS 2

∂H
= ẋ (8)
∂p
∂H
− = ṗ (9)
∂x
We get

∂H p
= = ẋ (10)
∂p m
∂H
− = −kx = ṗ (11)
∂x
We thus get a pair of first order ODEs which can be solved in the usual
way, given x (0) and p (0). The second order ODE that we got by using the
Lagrangian method can be obtained by differentiating the first equation and
plugging it into the second:

ṗ
ẍ = (12)
m
k
=− x (13)
m
From 7 we see that, since in the absence of external force, the total energy
H = T + V = E is a constant,

p2 1
+ kx2 = E = constant (14)
2m 2
This can be written as the equation of an ellipse:

p 2 x2
+ =1 (15)
b 2 a2
where

2E
a2 = (16)
k
2
b = 2mE (17)
Example 2. We can use the Hamiltonian formalism to get the equations of
motion of the coupled harmonic oscillator. From our Lagrangian treatment,
we had

1
L = m ẋ21 + ẋ22 − k x21 + x22 − x1 x2



(18)
2
 HAMILTONIANS FOR HARMONIC OSCILLATORS 3

Converting to coordinates and momenta, we have

∂L
pi = = mẋi (19)
∂ ẋi
pi
ẋi = (20)
m
H = ∑ pi ẋi − L (x, ẋ) (21)
i
 
1 2 2

1 2 2

2 2


= p + p2 − m p 1 + p 2 − k x1 + x2 − x1 x2 (22)
m 1 2m
1
p21 + p22 + k x21 + x22 − x1 x2



= (23)
2m
Applying the canonical equations gives

∂H pi
= = ẋi (24)
∂pi m
∂H
− = −2kx1 + kx2 = ṗ1 (25)
∂x1
∂H
− = −2kx2 + kx1 = ṗ2 (26)
∂x2
Again, by taking the derivative of the first line and substituting into the
last two lines, we get back the previous equations of motion:

k k
ẍ1 = −2 x1 + x2 (27)
m m
k k
ẍ2 = x1 − 2 x2 (28)
m m