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Classical mechanics

2025/2026
Programme:
Physics, First Cycle
Orientation:
Educational Physics
Year:
2 year
Semester:
second
Kind:
mandatory
ECTS:
5
Language:
slovenian
Course director:
Lecturer (contact person):
Hours per week – 2. semester:
Lectures
2
Seminar
0
Tutorial
2
Lab
0
Prerequisites

Enrolment status.
Final oral examination pending on succesfully completed written exam with problem solving.

Content (Syllabus outline)

Newton's mechanics: Noninertial systems and system forces. System of particles: total momentum, angular momentum and energy. Nonconservative forces.
Langrangian mechanics: Constraints and generalised coordinates. D'Alembert principle. Lagrangian and Lagrange equations. Conserved quantities. Hamilton's variational principle. Variational derivation of Lagrange equations.
Central force problem: Reduction of two-body problem. Orbits of motion. Kepler problem: orbits, Binet's relation, Kepler laws.
Motion of the rigid body: Rigid body coordinates, Euler angles. Equations of motion for a rigid body with a fixed point - free motion. Motion of the spinning top.
Small vibrations: expansion around the stationary solution. Harmonic vibrations, normal coordinates.
Hamiltonian mechanics: Legendre transformation. Hamilton's equations of motion. Example: particle in electromagnetic field. Poisson bracket. Canonical transformation.
Continuum mechanics: Longitudinal vibrations of elastic rod. Lagrange density. Variational formulation of continuum mechanics. Hamiltoniam for a continuum.

Readings

H. Goldstein, Classical Mechanics. Wiley, 1981.
L. N. Hand, J. D. Finch, Analytical Mechanics. Cambridge University Press, 1998.
P. Prelovšek, Klasična mehanika, spletna skripta FMF (2013).

Objectives and competences

The generalization of the classical mechanics of point particles, many-body systems, rigid bodies and continua.

Intended learning outcomes

Knowledge and understanding:
The description of motion of a point body, rigid body and physical continuum, as well as the many-body system. Unification of mechanics based on the Lagrange and Hamilton formalism.

Application:
Lagrange and Hamilton formulation are the basis for the description of dynamical systems, and for quantum and statistical physics of particles and fields.

Reflection:
General fomulation of classical mechanics within the Langrange and Hamilton formalism.

Transferable skills:
Formulation of problems in classical mechanics and methods of solution of equations of motion.

Learning and teaching methods

Lectures, exercises, homeworks and consulations.

Assessment

2 tests or a written exam with problems.
Oral exam
grading: 5 (fail), 6-10 (pass) (according to the Statute of UL)

Lecturer's references

Thermal effects on a nonadiabatic spin-flip protocol of spin-orbit qubits, Brecht Donvil, Lara Ulčakar, Tomaž Rejec, and Anton Ramšak, Phys. Rev. B 101, 205427 (2020)

Exact analysis of gate noise effects on non-adiabatic transformations of spin-orbit qubits, Lara Ulčakar and Anton Ramšak, New J. Phys. 19, 093015 (2017)

Exact nonadiabatic holonomic transformations of spin-orbit qubits, T. Čadež, J.H. Jefferson, and A. Ramšak, Phys. Rev. Lett. 112, 150402 (2014)

Geometrical view of quantum entanglement, A. Ramšak, Europhys. Lett. 96, 40004 (2011)

Geometric analysis of entangled qubit pairs, A. Ramšak, New J. Phys. 13, 103037 (2011)