Thursday, 12 October 2017

gravity - Angular Momentum Conservation in Gravitational Interaction


thanks for any help.


I'm trying to show that in a 2body problem, angular momentum is conserved given that \dfrac{dp}{dt}=\dfrac{-GMm(rv)}{r³}, where p is momentum, t time, G gravitational constant, M mass of 1 object, m mass of the other, (rv) is the vector between them and r is the magnitude of the vector between them.


I've had a lot of attempts but I don't seem to get very far.


Where L is angular momentum, r_1 is position vector of mass M and r_2 is position vector of mass m, p_1 is momentum of mass M and p_2 is momentum of mass m.



L=r_1Xp_1+r_2Xp_2


If \dfrac{dL}{dt}=0 then dL will be conserved over time, applying product rule L=\dfrac{dr_1}{dt}Xp_1+r_1X\dfrac{dp_1}{dt}+\dfrac{dr_2}{dt}Xp_2+r_2X\dfrac{dp_2}{dt}


noticing that p_1=m\dfrac{dr_1}{dt} and p_2=m\dfrac{dr_2}{dt} clearly p_1 is parallel to \dfrac{dr_1}{dt} and p_2 is parallel to \dfrac{dr_2}{dt} and hence when cross producted with them, the result is 0.


Giving L=r_1X\dfrac{dp_1}{dt}+r_2X\dfrac{dp_2}{dt}


I gather I must now show that either these two terms are 0, or they are equal and opposite. I can't see any reason why they would be 0, and (slightly guessing) it seems to make sense to me that they are terms related to how the angular momentum of one body changes with the other body, and I assume they must therefore be equal and opposite. However when I do


r_1X\dfrac{dp_1}{dt}=-r_2X\dfrac{dp_2}{dt} I notice \dfrac{dp_1}{dt}=\dfrac{-GMm(rv)}{r³} and \dfrac{dp_2}{dt}=\dfrac{GMm(rv)}{r³} (since (rv)'s direction is flipped) Therefore r_1X\dfrac{-GMm(rv)}{r³}=-\dfrac{r_2XGMm(rv)}{r³} Defining w=\dfrac{GMm}{r³}:


r_1X(rv)(-w)=r_2X(rv)(-w)


Scalar products are commutative so the (-w)'s easily cancel giving


r_1X(rv)=r_2X(rv) Which then the only solutions are if all components of r_1 are equal to all components of r_2, however angular momentum should clearly be conserved in all positions, not just when the masses are ontop of each other.


Thanks again for any help.





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