English

Rotating saddle trap: A Coriolis force in an inertial frame

Mathematical Physics 2017-02-06 v1 Dynamical Systems math.MP Classical Physics

Abstract

Particles in rotating saddle potentials exhibit precessional motion which, up to now, has been explained by explicit computation. We show that this precession is due to a hidden Coriolis-like force which, unlike the standard Coriolis force, is present in the inertial frame. We do so by finding a hodograph-like "guiding center" transformation using the method of normal form.

Keywords

Cite

@article{arxiv.1509.06703,
  title  = {Rotating saddle trap: A Coriolis force in an inertial frame},
  author = {Oleg N. Kirillov and Mark Levi},
  journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:1509.06703},
  year   = {2017}
}

Comments

17 pages, 2 figures

R2 v1 2026-06-22T11:02:56.289Z