Variations On A Theme By Kepler

This book is based on the Colloquium Lectures presented by Shlomo Sternberg in 1990. The authors delve into the mysterious role that groups, especially Lie groups, play in revealing the laws of nature by focusing on the familiar example of Kepler motion: the motion of a planet under the attraction of the sun according to Kepler's laws. Newton realized that Kepler's second law--that equal areas are swept out in equal times--has to do with the fact that the force is directed radially to the sun. Kepler's second law is really the assertion of the conservation of angular momentum, reflecting the rotational symmetry of the system about the origin of the force. In today's language, we would say that the group $O(3)$ (the orthogonal group in three dimensions) is responsible for Kepler's second law. By the end of the nineteenth century, the inverse square law of attraction was seen to have $O(4)$ symmetry (where $O(4)$ acts on a portion of the six-dimensional phase space of the planet). Even larger groups have since been found to be involved in Kepler motion. In quantum mechanics, the example of Kepler motion manifests itself as the hydrogen atom. Exploring this circle of ideas, the first part of the book was written with the general mathematical reader in mind. The remainder of the book is aimed at specialists. It begins with a demonstration that the Kepler problem and the hydrogen atom exhibit $O(4)$ symmetry and that the form of this symmetry determines the inverse square law in classical mechanics and the spectrum of the hydrogen atom in quantum mechanics. The space of regularized elliptical motions of the Kepler problem (also known as the Kepler manifold) plays a central role in this book. The last portion of the book studies the various cosmological models in this same conformal class (and having varying isometry groups) from the viewpoint of projective geometry. The computation of the hydrogen spectrum provides an illustration of the principle that enlarging the phase space can simplify the equations of motion in the classical setting and aid in the quantization problem in the quantum setting. The authors provide a short summary of the homological quantization of constraints and a list of recent applications to many interesting finite-dimensional settings. The book closes with an outline of Kostant's theory, in which a unitary representation is associated to the minimal nilpotent orbit of $SO(4,4)$ and in which electromagnetism and gravitation are unified in a Kaluza-Klein-type theory in six dimensions.

This book is based on the Colloquium Lectures presented by Shlomo Sternberg in 1990. The authors delve into the mysterious role that groups, especially Lie groups, play in revealing the laws of nature by focusing on the familiar example of Kepler motion: the motion of a planet under the attraction of the sun according to Kepler's laws. Newton realized that Kepler's second law--that equal areas are swept out in equal times--has to do with the fact that the force is directed radially to the sun. Kepler's second law is really the assertion of the conservation of angular momentum, reflecting the rotational symmetry of the system about the origin of the force. In today's language, we would say that the group $O(3)$ (the orthogonal group in three dimensions) is responsible for Kepler's second law. By the end of the nineteenth century, the inverse square law of attraction was seen to have $O(4)$ symmetry (where $O(4)$ acts on a portion of the six-dimensional phase space of the planet). Even larger groups h The remainder of the book is aimed at specialists. It begins with a demonstration that the Kepler problem and the hydrogen atom exhibit $O(4)$ symmetry and that the form of this symmetry determines the inverse square law in classical mechanics and the spectrum of the hydrogen atom in quantum mechanics. The space of regularized elliptical motions of the Kepler problem (also known as the Kepler manifold) plays a central role in this book. The last portion of the book studies the various cosmological models in this same conformal class (and having varying isometry groups) from the viewpoint of projective geometry. The computation of the hydrogen spectrum provides an illustration of the principle that enlarging the phase space can simplify the equations of motion in the classical setting and aid in the quantization problem in the quantum setting. The authors provide a short summary of the homological quantization of constraints and a list of recent applications to many interesting finite-dimensional set

A collection of articles discussing integrable systems and algebraic geometry from leading researchers in the field.

The principle aim of the book is to present a self-contained, modern account of similarity and symmetry methods, which are important mathematical tools for both physicists, engineers and applied mathematicians. The idea is to provide a balanced presentation of the mathematical techniques and applications of symmetry methods in mathematics, physics and engineering. That is why it includes recent developments and many examples in finding systematically conservation laws, local and nonlocal symmetries for ordinary and partial differential equations. The role of continuous symmetries in classical and quantum field theories is exposed at a technical level accessible even for non specialists. The importance of symmetries in continuum mechanics and mechanics of materials is highlighted through recent developments, such as the construction of constitutive models for various materials combining Lie symmetries with experimental data. As a whole this book is a unique collection of contributions from experts in the field, including specialists in the mathematical treatment of symmetries, researchers using symmetries from a fundamental, applied or numerical viewpoint. The book is a fascinating overview of symmetry methods aimed for graduate students in physics, mathematics and engineering, as well as researchers either willing to enter in the field or to capture recent developments and applications of symmetry methods in different scientific fields.

Because of the correspondences existing among all levels of reality, truths pertaining to a lower level can be considered as symbols of truths at a higher level and can therefore be the "foundation" or support leading by analogy to a knowledge of the latter. This confers to every science a superior or "elevating" meaning, far deeper than its own original one. - R. GUENON, The Crisis of Modern World Having been interested in the Kepler Problem for a long time, I have al ways found it astonishing that no book has been written yet that would address all aspects of the problem. Besides hundreds of articles, at least three books (to my knowledge) have indeed been published al ready on the subject, namely Englefield (1972), Stiefel & Scheifele (1971) and Guillemin & Sternberg (1990). Each of these three books deals only with one or another aspect of the problem, though. For example, En glefield (1972) treats only the quantum aspects, and that in a local way. Similarly, Stiefel & Scheifele (1971) only considers the linearization of the equations of motion with application to the perturbations of celes tial mechanics. Finally, Guillemin & Sternberg (1990) is devoted to the group theoretical and geometrical structure.

Blending control theory, mechanics, geometry and the calculus of variations, this book is a vital resource for graduates and researchers in engineering, mathematics and physics.

This volume gives an overview of the recent representative developments in relativistic and non-relativistic quantum theory, which are related to the application of various mathematical notions of various symmetries. These notions are centered upon groups, algebras and their generalizations, and are applied in interaction with topology, differential geometry, functional analysis and related fields. The emphasis is on results in the following areas: foundation of quantum physics, quantization methods, nonlinear quantum mechanics, algebraic quantum field theory, gauge and string theories, discrete spaces, quantum groups and generalized symmetries.