Formalism to deal with discontinuous potentials in classical mechanics (hard wall, hard spheres)

Perhaps the simplest and most intuitive approach is to regularize the hard wall potential

$$V_0(x)~=~\left\{ \begin{array}{rcl} 0 &\text{for}& x<0 \cr\cr \infty &\text{for}& x>0\end{array}\right. $$

as

$$ \lim_{\varepsilon \to 0^+} V_{\varepsilon}(x) ~=~V_0(x).$$

For instance, one could choose the regularized potential as

$$ V_{\varepsilon}(x)~=~\frac{x}{\varepsilon}\theta(x).$$

This corresponds to constant velocity for $x<0$ and constant acceleration for $x>0$. Next write down a continuous solution for the position $x_{\varepsilon}(t)$ as a function of time $t$, say, for given pertinent initial conditions.

Finally, at the end of the calculation, one should remove the regularization $\varepsilon \to 0^+$ again, and check if the limit $$ \lim_{\varepsilon \to 0^+} x_{\varepsilon}(t)$$ makes physical sense.


I think I got how to deal with the problem in a straightforward way, without the passage to a limit.

Let the phase space of the initial problem be the half plane

$$\{ \,(q,p) \; | \; q > 0\},$$

the wall is at $q=0$. In this phase space when the particle reaches the point $(0, p)$ it instantaneously teleports to the point $(0, -p)$. Particle trajectories are thus discontinuous.

The trick now is to glue the half plane into a cone, so that particle trajectories will become continuous. At the same time the particles are considered free on the entire trajectory, yielding the Hamiltonian being just a kinetic energy. Sorry for the lack of appropriate drawings, but I hope it is not so hard to imagine. The operation can be formally achieved with a non-canonical change of coordinates to $(r, \varphi)$:

$$\begin{cases} p = 2 r \sin \dfrac{\varphi}{2}, \\[.5em] q = 2 r \cos \dfrac{\varphi}{2}. \end{cases}$$

These are actually polar coordinates in a plane perpendicular to the cone axis. The symplectic form $dp \land dq$ transforms to $2r \, d \varphi \land dr$, or, in other words, the Poisson matrix becomes

$$ \begin{bmatrix} 0 & \dfrac{1}{2r} \\ -\dfrac{1}{2r} & 0 \end{bmatrix} $$

The Hamiltonian (kinetic energy) is given by

$$H = \frac{2}{m} r^2 \sin^2 \frac{\varphi}{2}.$$

All of the above leads to the Hamiltonian flow of

$$X_H = \frac{1}{2m} r \sin \varphi \frac{\partial}{\partial r} - \frac{1 - \cos \varphi}{m} \frac{\partial}{\partial \varphi}$$

and the equations of motion of

$$\begin{cases} \dfrac{d r}{dt} = \dfrac{1}{2m} r \sin \varphi, \\[.5em] \dfrac{d \varphi}{dt} = -\dfrac{1}{m} (1 - \cos \varphi). \end{cases}$$

These are amenable to a relatively simple integration, free of the subtleties of special functions. As result one gets as a solution

$$\begin{gather} \cot \dfrac{\varphi(t)}{2} = C_1+ \dfrac{t}{m}, \\[.5em] r(t) = C_2 \sqrt{1 + \cot^2 \dfrac{\varphi(t)}{2}}, \end{gather}$$

which also can be obtained directly from the known solution in $(q,p)$ half-plane and coordinate transformation rules.

To sum up, the effect of the wall is accounted for via the change of the phase space topology. Thus, particles are considered free, with a Hamiltonian being a kinetic energy which is preserved. As far as I reckon the phase space is not a cotangent bundle of a configuration space anymore. If this is true along with all the above derivation, this represents probably the most simple case of a phase space that is not a cotangent bundle.


Further investigation

Although at first I was guided by geometrical reasoning about the phase space, now I have been thinking about the coordinate transformation itself. I came up with another transform, which is much closer to the original coordinates:

$$\begin{cases} p = \operatorname{sgn} \! \left(\, \widetilde q \,\right) \, \widetilde p, \\[.5em] q = \left|\, \widetilde q \, \right| . \end{cases}$$

Here it is assumed that $\frac{d}{dx} \operatorname{sgn} x = 0$. Then $dp \land dq = d \, \widetilde p \land d \, \widetilde q$ and the Hamiltonian is the one of a free particle:

$$H = \frac{\; \widetilde p^{\, 2} \!}{2m}.$$

Like with trigonometric coordinate transformation there seems to be a need to choose the right branch for the transform $q \mapsto \widetilde q$, but since $q \geqslant 0$ there is no ambiguity.


I will yet add another formalism:

Lets start with the hamiltonian form of Hamilton's Principle. Let $c: \mathbb R \longrightarrow T^*Q; t\mapsto (q(t),p(t))$ be the trajectory of a particle in the phase space of the configuration space $Q$, we define a subset of $Q$, $C$, where no contac occur between the particles, and $\partial C$ is te set of ponts wer contac has occure, but not penetration. We assume that $c$ will intersect $\partial C$ at time $t_c$, that is $q(t_c)\in \partial C$. $c$ is smooth out of $t_c$. Lets now derive the equations of motin with variations. We start with the action in hamiltoninan formalism with Lagrangian $L = \dot q p -H(q,p)$:

$$ S[c] = \int_0^T L(q,\dot q, p)dt = \int_0^{t^\lambda} L(q,\dot q, p)dt + \int_{t^\lambda} ^T L(q,\dot q, p)dt , $$ and with the variation on the path denoted by $c^\lambda$ and the variation on the collision instant by $t^\lambda$, if we set $\delta S =0$, by the Leibniz integration rule: $$ \frac{d}{d\lambda}S[c^\lambda] = \int^{t^\lambda}_0 \left[\frac{\partial L}{\partial c}\delta c +\frac{\partial L}{\partial \dot c}\delta \dot c \right] dt + \int^{T}_{t^\lambda} \left[\frac{\partial L}{\partial c}\delta c +\frac{\partial L}{\partial \dot c}\delta \dot c \right] dt + \left.L\delta t^\lambda\right|_{t^\lambda_-} -L\delta $$

t^\lambda\right|{t^\lambda+} $$

We integrate by parts as usual and require that $\delta q(0)=\delta q(T)=0$, there is no need to $\delta p$ to vanish as it is not integrated by parts, we get:

$$ \int^{t^\lambda}_0 \left[\frac{\partial L}{\partial c}\delta c -\frac{d}{dt}\frac{\partial L}{\partial \dot c}\delta c \right] dt + \int^{T}_{^\lambda} \left[\frac{\partial L}{\partial c}\delta c -\frac{d}{dt}\frac{\partial L}{\partial \dot c}\delta c \right] dt - \left[\frac{\partial L}{\partial \dot c}\delta c + L\delta t^\lambda\right]_{t_-^\lambda}^{t^\lambda_+}, $$ as we require the variations to vanish at all time, we can focus only in the third term:

$$ \left[\frac{\partial L}{\partial \dot c}\delta c + L\delta t_c\right]_{t_c^-}^{t_c^+} = \left[p \delta q + (\dot q p - H)\delta t_c\right]_{t_c^-}^{t_c^+}. $$

We recall that $q(t_c)\in \partial C$, so the variation $\delta q(t_c) + \dot q(t_c)\delta t_c \in T_{q(t_c)}Q$ and we get:

$$ \left[p \delta q + (\dot q p - H)\delta t^\lambda\right]_{t_-^\lambda}^{t_+^\lambda} = \left[p(\delta q + \dot q p\delta t^\lambda) - H \delta t^\lambda \right]_{t_-^\lambda}^{t_+^\lambda} =0, $$

considering the variations arbitrary, we get conservation of energy, $H$ has to be constant and we get that the change of momentum $p(t_+) -p(t_-)$ has to be normal to $T_{q(t_c)}Q$, and the conservation of energy fixes the magnitude. The major cave beat is that it is necessary to interpret which direction the particle exits the collision, because it is not possible to extract the information from the equations

Sources:

http://thesis.library.caltech.edu/1934/1/01thesis.pdf

http://people.math.sfu.ca/~van/papers/40603.pdf