Breakdown of the connection between symmetries and conservation laws for semiholonomic systems

Abstract

Integrable velocity-dependent constraints are said to be semiholonomic. For good reasons, holonomic and semiholonomic constraints are thought to be indistinguishable in Lagrangian mechanics. This well-founded belief notwithstanding, here we show by means of an example and a broad analysis that the connection between symmetries and conservation laws, which holds for holonomic systems, is not valid in general for systems subject to semiholonomic constraints.