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Lagrangian and Dirac constraints for the ideal incompressible fluid and magnetohydrodynamics

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  13 May 2020

P. J. Morrison*
Affiliation:
Department of Physics and Institute for Fusion Studies, The University of Texas at Austin, Austin, TX 78712-1060, USA
T. Andreussi
Affiliation:
SITAEL S.p.A., Pisa, 56121, Italy
F. Pegoraro
Affiliation:
Dipartimento di Fisica E. Fermi, Pisa, 56127, Italy
*
Email address for correspondence: morrison@physics.utexas.edu
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Abstract

The incompressibility constraint for fluid flow was imposed by Lagrange in the so-called Lagrangian variable description using his method of multipliers in the Lagrangian (variational) formulation. An alternative is the imposition of incompressibility in the Eulerian variable description by a generalization of Dirac’s constraint method using noncanonical Poisson brackets. Here it is shown how to impose the incompressibility constraint using Dirac’s method in terms of both the canonical Poisson brackets in the Lagrangian variable description and the noncanonical Poisson brackets in the Eulerian description, allowing for the advection of density. Both cases give the dynamics of infinite-dimensional geodesic flow on the group of volume preserving diffeomorphisms and explicit expressions for this dynamics in terms of the constraints and original variables is given. Because Lagrangian and Eulerian conservation laws are not identical, comparison of the various methods is made.

Information

Type
Research Article
Copyright
© The Author(s), 2020. Published by Cambridge University Press