English

Noether-Type Theorems and the Generalized Herglotz Principle in $q$-Contact Geometry

Mathematical Physics 2026-04-09 v1 math.MP

Abstract

We develop a unified geometric framework for dissipative mechanical systems based on uniform qq-contact manifolds, which provide an extended phase space equipped with multiple contact 11-forms. Within this setting, we construct both Hamiltonian and Lagrangian formalisms and establish a generalized Noether-type theorem describing the relationship between symmetries and dissipated quantities. We further show that qq-contact Lagrangian systems admit a genuine variational origin through a generalized Herglotz principle involving multiple action variables. The resulting qq-contact Euler--Lagrange equations naturally depend on the scalar combination i=1qL/zi\sum_{i=1}^q \partial L/\partial z_i, reflecting the intrinsic structure of uniform qq-contact geometry. We prove that this variational formulation is fully equivalent to the geometric qq-contact Hamiltonian dynamics generated by the energy function. Several explicit examples involving multi-parameter dependent dynamics illustrate the effectiveness of the theory and demonstrate its potential to provide geometric insight into complex dissipative systems, thereby extending the scope of classical Lagrangian mechanics beyond symplectic and single-contact structures.

Keywords

Cite

@article{arxiv.2604.06488,
  title  = {Noether-Type Theorems and the Generalized Herglotz Principle in $q$-Contact Geometry},
  author = {Melvin Leok and Cristina Sardón and Xuefeng Zhao},
  journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:2604.06488},
  year   = {2026}
}

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28 pages