On Hamiltonian flows whose orbits are straight lines

Abstract

We consider real analytic Hamiltonians whose flow depends linearly on time. Trivial examples are Hamiltonians $H(q,p)$ that do not depend on the coordinate $q$. By a theorem of Moser, every polynomial Hamiltonian of degree 3 reduces to such a $q$-independent Hamiltonian via a linear symplectic change of variables. We show that such a reduction is impossible, in general, for polynomials of degree 4 or higher. But we give a condition that implies linear-symplectic conjugacy to another simple class of Hamiltonians. The condition is shown to hold for all nondegenerate Hamiltonians that are homogeneous of degree 4.