Noncanonical Hamiltonian field theory and reduced MHD

Abstract

Aspects of noncanonical Hamiltonian field theory are reviewed. Many systems are Hamiltonian in the sense of possessing Poisson bracket structures, yet the equations are not in canonical form. A particular system of this type is considered, namely reduced magnetohydrodynamics (RMHD) which was derived for tokamak modelling. The notion of a lie Poisson bracket is reviewed; these are special Poisson brackets associated to Lie groups. The RMHD equations are shown to be Hamiltonian for brackets closely related to the Poisson bracket of a semi-direct product group. The process by which this bracket may be derived from a canonical Lagrangian description by reduction is described.