Deprit’s reduction of the nodes revisited

Abstract

We revisit a set of symplectic variables introduced by Andre Deprit (Celest Mech 30, 181–195, 1983), which allows for a complete symplectic reduction in rotation invariant Hamiltonian systems, generalizing to arbitrary dimension Jacobi’s reduction of the nodes. In particular, we introduce an action-angle version of Deprit’s variables, connected to the Delaunay variables, and give a new hierarchical proof of the symplectic character of Deprit’s variables.