English

Energy partition for anharmonic, undamped, classical oscillators

Statistical Mechanics 2020-04-21 v1 Classical Physics

Abstract

Using stochastic methods, general formulas for average kinetic and potential energies for anharmonic, undamped (frictionless), classical oscillators are derived. It is demonstrated that for potentials of xν|x|^\nu (ν>0\nu>0) type energies are equipartitioned for the harmonic potential only. For potential wells weaker than parabolic potential energy dominates, while for potentials stronger than parabolic kinetic energy prevails. Due to energy conservation, the variances of kinetic and potential energies are equal. In the limiting case of the infinite rectangular potential well (ν\nu\to\infty) the whole energy is stored in the form of the kinetic energy and variances of energy distributions vanish.

Keywords

Cite

@article{arxiv.2003.05815,
  title  = {Energy partition for anharmonic, undamped, classical oscillators},
  author = {Michal Mandrysz and Bartlomiej Dybiec},
  journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:2003.05815},
  year   = {2020}
}

Comments

5 pages, 3 figures

R2 v1 2026-06-23T14:12:53.270Z