Related papers: On a class of polynomial Lagrangians
We formulate higher order variations of a Lagrangian in the geometric framework of jet prolongations of fibered manifolds. Our formalism applies to Lagrangians which depend on an arbitrary number of independent and dependent variables,…
Lepage equivalents of Lagrangians are a higher order, field-theoretical generalization of the notion of Poincare-Cartan form from mechanics and play a similar role: they give rise to a geometric formulation (and to a geometric…
The projectability of Poincar\'e-Cartan forms in a third-order jet bundle $J^3\pi$ onto a lower-order jet bundle is a consequence of the degenerate character of the corresponding Lagrangian. This fact is analyzed using the constraint…
In this paper we derive the symplectic framework for field theories defined by higher-order Lagrangians. The construction is based on the symplectic reduction of suitable spaces of iterated jets. The possibility of reducing a higher-order…
Motivated by the problem of longitudinal data assimilation, e.g., in the registration of a sequence of images, we develop the higher-order framework for Lagrangian and Hamiltonian reduction by symmetry in geometric mechanics. In particular,…
Second-order Lagrangian densities admitting a first-order Hamiltonian formalism are studied; namely, i) for each second-order Lagrangian density on an arbitrary fibred manifold $p\colon E\to N$ the Poincar\'e-Cartan form of which is…
The geometric Lagrangian theory (of arbitrary order) is based on the analysis of some basic mathematical objects such as: the contact ideal, the (exact) variational sequence, the existence of Euler-Lagrange and Helmholtz-Sonin forms, etc.…
A discrete version of Lagrangian reduction is developed in the context of discrete time Lagrangian systems on $G\times G$, where $G$ is a Lie group. We consider the case when the Lagrange function is invariant with respect to the action of…
It is shown that a given non-autonomous system of two first-order ordinary differential equations can be expressed in Hamiltonian form. The derivation presented here allow us to obtain previously known results such as the infinite number of…
If a Lagrangian defining a variational problem has order $k$ then its Euler-Lagrange equations generically have order $2k$. This paper considers the case where the Euler-Lagrange equations have order strictly less than $2k$, and shows that…
We consider the variational complex on infinite jet space and the complex of variational derivatives for Lagrangians of multidimensional paths and study relations between them. The discussion of the variational (bi)complex is set up in…
We study the structure and dynamics of the infinite sequence of extensions of the Poincar{\'e} algebra whose method of construction was described in a previous paper [1]. We give explicitly the Maurer-Cartan (MC) 1-forms of the extended Lie…
The Carath\'eodory form of the calculus of variations belongs to the class of Lepage equivalents of first-order Lagrangians in field theory. Here, this equivalent is generalized for second- and higher-order Lagrangians by means of intrisic…
In this paper we propose a variational complex associated to a diffeomorphisms group with first order jet in a Lie group. We study the structure of null lagrangians and we prove some fundamental properties of them, as well as their…
The Euler-Lagrange equations for some class of gravitational actions are calculated by means of Palatini principle. Polynomial structures with Einstein metrics appear among extremals of this variational problem.
We classify invariant Lagrangians of the form $L(g_{ij},g_{ij,k},g_{ij,kl},D_I,D_{I,j})$ depending at most quadratically on the variables $g_{ij,k},g_{ij,kl}$ and $D_I,D_{I,j}$, where $g$ is a Lorentz metric and $D$ is a tensor field of…
An alternative class of the Lagrangian called the multiplicative form is suc- cessfully derived for a system with one degree of freedom for both non-relativistic and relativistic cases. This new Lagrangian can be considered as a…
Hierarchies of Lagrangians of degree two, each only partly determined by the choice of leading terms and with some coefficients remaining free, are considered. The free coefficients they contain satisfy the most general differential…
Lagrangian multiform theory is a variational framework for integrable systems. In this article we introduce a new formulation which is based on symplectic geometry and which treats position, momentum and time coordinates of a…
The Lagrangian formalism on a arbitrary non-fibrating manifold is considered. The kinematical description of this generic situation is based on the concept of (higher-order) Grassmann manifolds which is the factorization of the regular…