Agradecimientos:
The authors want to thank Juan Margalef and Mariano Santander for their useful comments. This work has been supported by the Spanish MINECO research grants FIS2012-34379, FIS2014-57387-C3-3-P and the Consolider-Ingenio 2010 Program CPAN (CSD2007-00042).
Proyecto:
Gobierno de España. FIS2012-34379 Gobierno de España. FIS2014-57387-C3-3-P Gobierno de España. CSD2007-00042
This article discusses and explains the Hamiltonian formulation for a class of simple gauge invariant mechanical systems consisting of point masses and idealized rods. The study of these models may be helpful to advanced undergraduate or graduate students in tThis article discusses and explains the Hamiltonian formulation for a class of simple gauge invariant mechanical systems consisting of point masses and idealized rods. The study of these models may be helpful to advanced undergraduate or graduate students in theoretical physics to understand, in a familiar context, some concepts relevant to the study of classical and quantum field theories. We use a geometric approach to derive the Hamiltonian formulation for the model considered in the paper: four equal masses connected by six ideal rods. We obtain and discuss the meaning of several important elements, in particular, the constraints and the Hamiltonian vector fields that define the dynamics of the system, the constraint manifold, gauge symmetries, gauge orbits, gauge fixing, and the reduced phase space.[+][-]
