Analytical Mechanics

T K Shajahan

1 Small OScillations
The Lagrangian of the problem can be written in matrix format as:
1˙ 1
L= η̃Tη̇ − η̃Vη
2 2
Here η is the column vector of size n, η̃ the transpose of it (the row vector of size n). The equation of
motion is
Tη̈ + Vη = 0
This will lead to a general solution of the form,

η = aexp(iωt)

The normal mode frequencies ω, and directions a can be found by solving the general eigen value (-like)
problem
Va = ω 2 a
.
In general there will be n solutions to it and corresponding to each normal frequency ωj , there will
be an eigen vector a(j).

2 Modal matrix
The modal matrix A has a(j) along each column.
 
A = a(1) a(2) ... a(n)

The matrix A can diagonalise both T and V simultaneously. i.e.,

AT TA = In

Note 1:
In general you will get a diagonal matrix. But you need to to normalise A such that it gives you an
identity matrix.

Reverse is not true!

If you do the reverse operation, that is,
ATAT
this need not be diagonal.
The operation AT VA will give a diagonal matrix, with eigen frequencies along the diagonal.

1
3 Normal Coordinate
The normal coordinate ζ is defined as,
η = Aζ
or
ζ = AT η

Reverse is not true!

No, we cannot define it as ζ = Aη, this will not give the correct equations of motion. (Why? Please
verify.)
The advantage of normal coordinate is that the equations of motion are much simpler now. Each
normal coordinate oscillates with a single frequency. For the k th component, the Lagrange’s equation of
motion is:
ζ̈k + ωk2 ζk = 0
And the solutions are:
ζk = Ck exp −iωk t