Generalisation of Chaplygin's Reducing Multiplier Theorem with an application to multi-dimensional nonholonomic dynamics

Abstract

A generalisation of Chaplygin's Reducing Multiplier Theorem is given by providing sufficient conditions for the Hamiltonisation of Chaplygin nonholonomic systems with an arbitrary number $r$ of degrees of freedom via Chaplygin's multiplier method. The crucial point in the construction is to add an hypothesis of geometric nature that controls the interplay between the kinetic energy metric and the non-integrability of the constraint distribution. Such hypothesis can be systematically examined in concrete examples, and is automatically satisfied in the case $r= 2$ encountered in the original formulation of Chaplygin's theorem. Our results are applied to prove the Hamiltonisation of a multi-dimensional generalisation of the problem of a symmetric rigid body with a flat face that rolls without slipping or spinning over a sphere.