The contact magnetic flow in 3D Sasakian manifolds

Abstract

We first present a geometrical approach to magnetic fields in three-dimensional Riemannian manifolds, because this particular dimension allows one to easily tie vector fields and 2-forms. When the vector field is divergence free, it defines a magnetic field on the manifold whose Lorentz force equation presents a simple and useful form. In particular, for any three-dimensional Sasakian manifold the contact magnetic field is studied and the normal magnetic trajectories are determined. As an application, we consider the three-dimensional unit sphere, where we prove the existence of closed magnetic trajectories of the contact magnetic field, and that this magnetic flow is quantized in the set of rational numbers.