Darryl Holm (Imperial College London)
Abstract. Suppose in observing a satellite as it is orbiting the Earth, we notice that a small antenna attached to the rotating satellite has a stochastic wobble, meaning that the angular velocity of the satellite had a stochastic component. The magnitude of the angular momentum of the satellite will still be constant, but its energy will now be stochastic. The question is, “What does this stochastic wobble indicate for the probability distribution of the satellite’s future orientation? And how long before the stochastic wobble induces a significant change in the probable orientation of the satellite?” Our variational approach to the problem of stochastic rigid body dynamics leads to a sequence of observations about stochastic dynamics of noncanonical Hamiltonian systems, in general.
"A motion is said to be stochastic, if it has a random probability distribution or pattern that may be analysed statistically, but may not be predicted precisely."