We work with a formulation of Noether-symmetry analysis which uses the properties of infinitesimal point transformations in the space-time variables to establish the association between symmetries and conservation laws of a dynamical system. Here symmetries are expressed in the form of generators. We have studied the variational or Noether symmetries of the damped harmonic oscillator representing it by an explicitly time-dependent Lagrangian and found that a five-parameter group of transformations leaves the action integral invariant. Amongst the associated conserved quantities only two are found to be functionally independent. These two conserved quantities determine the solution of the problem and correspond to a two-parameter Abelian subgroup.

An expression for the transition probability or form factor in one-dimensional Rydberg atom irradiated by short half-cycle pulse was constructed. In applicative contexts, our expression was found to be more useful than the corresponding result given by Landau and Lifshitz. Using the new expression for the form factor, the motion of a localized quantum wave packet was studied with particular emphasis on its revival and super-revival properties. Closed form analytical expressions were derived for expectation values of the position and momentum operators that characterized the widths of the position and momentum distributions. Transient phase-space localization of the wave packet produced by the application of a single impulsive kick was explicitly demonstrated. The undulation of the uncertainty product as a function of time was studied in order to visualize how the motion of the wave packet in its classical trajectory spreads throughout the orbit and the system becomes nonclassical. The process, however, repeats itself such that the atom undergoes a free evolution from a classical, to a nonclassical, and back to a classical state.

We introduced complexly coupled modified KdV (ccmKdV) equations, which could be derived from a two-layer fluid model [Yang and Mao, Chin. Phys. Lett. 25, 1527 (2008); Hu, J. Phys. A: Math. Theor. 43, 185207 (2009)], and used the Miura transformation to construct expressions for their alternative Lax pair representations. We derived a Lagrangian-based approach to study the Hamiltonian structures of the ccmKdV equations and observed that the complexly coupled mKdV equations have an additional analytic structure. The coupled equations were characterized by two alternative Lagrangians not connected by a gauge term. We examined how the alternative Lagrangian descriptions of the system affect the bi-Hamiltonian structures.