Reduction of Lagrangian mechanics on Lie algebroids

Abstract

We prove that if a surjective submersion which is a homomorphism of Lie algebroids is given, then there exists another homomorphism between the corresponding prolonged Lie algebroids and a relation between the dynamics on these Lie algebroid prolongations is established. We also propose a geometric reduction method for dynamics on Lie algebroids defined by a Lagrangian and the method is applied to regular Lagrangian systems with nonholonomic constraints.