Generalized virial theorem for contact Hamiltonian systems

Abstract

Abstract We formulate and study a generalized virial theorem for contact Hamiltonian systems. Such systems describe mechanical systems in the presence of simple dissipative forces such as Rayleigh friction, or the vertical motion of a particle falling through a fluid (quadratic drag) under the action of constant gravity. We find a generalized virial theorem for contact Hamiltonian systems which is distinct from that obtained earlier for the symplectic case. The ‘contact’ generalized virial theorem is shown to reduce to the earlier result on symplectic manifolds as a special case. Various examples of dissipative mechanical systems are discussed. We also formulate a generalized virial theorem in the contact Lagrangian framework.