Related papers: From variational principles to geometry
In this paper we present a unified Lagrangian--Hamiltonian geometric formalism to describe time-dependent contact mechanical systems, based on the one first introduced by K. Kamimura and later formalized by R. Skinner and R. Rusk. This…
Recently, Lobb and Nijhoff initiated the study of variational (Lagrangian) structure of discrete integrable systems from the perspective of multi-dimensional consistency. In the present work, we follow this line of research and develop a…
A new perspective on the classical mechanical formulation of particle trajectories in lorentz-violating theories is presented. Using the extended hamiltonian formalism, a Legendre Transformation between the associated covariant Lagrangian…
We develop an approach for the analysis of fundamental solutions to Hamilton-Jacobi equations of contact type based on a generalized variational principle proposed by Gustav Herglotz. We also give a quantitative Lipschitz estimate on the…
We use a new variational method --based on the theory of anti-selfdual Lagrangians developed in [2] and [3]-- to establish the existence of solutions of convex Hamiltonian systems that connect two given Lagrangian submanifolds in $\R^{2N}$.…
The gauge symmetries of a general dynamical system can be systematically obtained following either a Hamiltonean or a Lagrangean approach. In the former case, these symmetries are generated, according to Dirac's conjecture, by the first…
In this paper the structures of the generalised Euler-Lagrange equations and their associated conserved quantities are derived for one-dimensional Herglotz variational problems of order $n$. Their derivations use the framework of moving…
It is well known that both the symplectic structure and the Poisson brackets of classical field theory can be constructed directly from the Lagrangian in a covariant way, without passing through the non-covariant canonical Hamiltonian…
In this paper, we develop the theoretical foundations of discrete Dirac mechanics, that is, discrete mechanics of degenerate Lagrangian/Hamiltonian systems with constraints. We first construct discrete analogues of Tulczyjew's triple and…
A geometric description is given for the Sp(2) covariant version of the field-antifield quantization of general constrained systems in the Lagrangian formalism. We develop differential geometry on manifolds in which a basic set of…
We consider a class of Lagrangians that depend not only on some configurational variables and their first time derivatives, but also on second time derivatives, thereby leading to fourth-order evolution equations. The proposed higher-order…
The difference variational bicomplex, which is the natural setting for systems of difference equations, is constructed and used to examine the geometric and algebraic properties of various systems. Exactness of the bicomplex gives a…
We introduce a variational principle for field theories, referred to as the Hamilton-Pontryagin principle, and we show that the resulting field equations are the Euler-Lagrange equations in implicit form. Secondly, we introduce multi-Dirac…
A description of Lagrangian and Hamiltonian formalisms naturally arisen from the invariance structure of given nonlinear dynamical systems on the infinite--dimensional functional manifold is presented. The basic ideas used to formulate the…
The exactness equation for Lepage 2-forms, associated with variational systems of ordinary differential equations on smooth manifolds, is analyzed with the aim to construct a concrete global variational principle. It is shown that locally…
Variational integrators for Lagrangian dynamical systems provide a systematic way to derive geometric numerical methods. These methods preserve a discrete multisymplectic form as well as momenta associated to symmetries of the Lagrangian…
It is well-known that if a symplectic integrator is applied to a Hamiltonian system, then the modified equation, whose solutions interpolate the numerical solutions, is again Hamiltonian. We investigate this property from the variational…
We formulate a Herglotz-type variational principle on a Lie algebroid and derive the corresponding Euler--Lagrange--Herglotz equations for a Lagrangian depending on an additional scalar variable $z$. This provides a geometric framework for…
A relation between variational principles for equations of continuum mechanics in Eulerian and Lagrangian descriptions is considered. It is shown that for a system of differential equations in Eulerian variables corresponding Lagrangian…
It is shown that the action for Hamiltonian equations of motion can be brought into invariant symplectic form. In other words, it can be formulated directly in terms of the symplectic structure $\omega$ without any need to choose some…