English

Extending Bauer's corollary to fractional derivatives

Classical Physics 2009-11-10 v2 General Physics

Abstract

We comment on the method of Dreisigmeyer and Young [D. W. Dreisigmeyer and P. M. Young, J. Phys. A \textbf{36}, 8297, (2003)] to model nonconservative systems with fractional derivatives. It was previously hoped that using fractional derivatives in an action would allow us to derive a single retarded equation of motion using a variational principle. It is proven that, under certain reasonable assumptions, the method of Dreisigmeyer and Young fails.

Keywords

Cite

@article{arxiv.physics/0312085,
  title  = {Extending Bauer's corollary to fractional derivatives},
  author = {David W. Dreisigmeyer and Peter M. Young},
  journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:physics/0312085},
  year   = {2009}
}

Comments

Accepted Journal of Physics A at www.iop.org/EJ/journal/JPhysA