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Accelerator Physics/Coordinate Systems

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 Cartesian coordinates

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, sometimes denoted as

Transformation to other coordinates

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The general transformation relations to a new coordinate system are,

,

where

Cylindrical Coordinates

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The cylindrical coordinates are related to the cartesian coordinates by

Spherical Polar Coordinates

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Spherical coordinates in most of the physics conventions. Notice that this is different than the mathematics convention in which and are swapped compared to the figure shown.

The spherical polar coordinates , or simply the spherical coordinates, are particularly useful when the system in has a spherical symmetry, such as the motion of a particle under the influence of central forces.