Geometric Mechanics and Symmetry: From Finite to Infinite Dimensions

,by Darryl D. Holm, Tanya Schmah and Cristina Stoica, Oxford University Press,Oxford, 2009, xi + 515 pp., ISBN: 978-0-19-921290-3The purpose of the book is to provide the unifying viewpoint of Lagrangian andHamiltonian mechanics in the coordinate-free language of differential geometryin the spirit of the Marsden-Ratiu school. The book is similar in content - althoughless formal - to the book by J. Marsden and T. Ratiu [7]. One can also mentionthe companion two-volumes book by Holm [4,5] written at a more basic level,and that one can recommend as an introductory reading. The classical treatises onthe subject are the books by Abraham-Marsden [1], Arnold [2] and Libermann-Marle [6].Typical applications are N-particle systems, rigid bodies, continua such as u-ids and electromagnetic systems that illustrate the powerfulness of the adoptedpoint of view. The geometrical structure allows the covering of both the nite-dimensional conservative case (rst part of the book) and the innite dimensionalsituation in the second part. The notion of symmetry here is central, as it allowsa reduction of the number of dimensions of the mechanical systems, and furtherexploits the conserved quantities (momentum map) associated to symmetry. Liegroup symmetries, Poisson reduction and momentum maps are rst discussed.The concepts are introduced in a progressive and clear manner in the rst part ofthe book. The second part devoted to innite dimensional systems is motivatedby the identication of Euler’s ideal uid motion with the geodesic o w on thegroup of volume-preserving diffeomorphism. The Euler-PoincarO (EP) variationalprinciple for the Euler uid equations is exposed in the framework of geometricmechanics, in association with Lie-Poisson Hamiltonian structure of Noether’stheorem and momentum maps. Original applications of the Euler-PoincarO equa-tions to solitons, computational anatomy, image matching, or geophysical uiddynamics are given at the end of the second part of the book.Here the rst chapter recapitulates the Newtonian, Lagrangian and Hamiltonian117