Numerical evidence for the approximation of dissipative systems by gyroscopically coupled oscillator chains

Inspired by the equations of motion of the gyroscope, where a Lagrangian and conservative system may appear to mimic a dissipative one when focusing on a single degree of freedom for finite time intervals, we introduce a gyroscopic-type coupling between harmonic oscillators. The aim is to propose a tentative scheme of solution for the problem of finding a higher-dimensional Lagrangian system approximating a lower-dimensional dissipative one. Specifically, we consider a certain family of Lagrangian systems, for which the time evolution of the first Lagrangian parameter is conjectured to be a good approximation for the evolution of a one-dimensional linear dissipative system in finite time intervals, up to a fixed precision. The behavior of the selected family of gyroscopic couplings is compared with a given dissipative system, properly optimizing a family of parameters according to a described scheme. Numerical calculations are reported, suggesting the validity of the proposed conjecture.