Poisson structures for reduced non-holonomic systems

Abstract

Borisov, Mamaev and Kilin have recently found certain Poisson structures with respect to which the reduced and rescaled systems of certain non-holonomic problems, involving rolling bodies without slipping, become Hamiltonian, the Hamiltonian function being the reduced energy. We study further the algebraic origin of these Poisson structures, showing that they are of rank two and therefore the mentioned rescaling is not necessary. We show that they are determined, up to a non-vanishing factor function, by the existence of a system of first-order differential equations providing two integrals of motion. We generalize the form of that Poisson structures and extend their domain of definition. We apply the theory to the rolling disk, the Routh's sphere, the ball rolling on a surface of revolution, and its special case of a ball rolling inside a cylinder.