Lagrangian mechanics without ordinary differential equations

We introduce a method which allows one to recover the equations of motion of a class of nonholonomic systems by finding instead an unconstrained Hamiltonian system on the full phase space, and to restrict the resulting canonical equations to an appropriate submanifold of phase space. We focus first on the Lagrangian picture of the method and deduce the corresponding Hamiltonian from the Legendre transformation. We illustrate the method with several examples and we discuss its...

A general discussion of equations with universal invariance for a scalar field is provided in the framework of Lagrangian theory of first-order systems.

It is shown that linear time-dependent invariants for arbitrary multi\-dimensional quadratic systems can be obtained from the Lagrangian and Hamiltonian formulation procedures by considering a variation of coordinates and momenta that follows the classical trajectory and defines a noetherian symmetry transformation.

Given a non-variational system of differential equations, the simplest way of turning it into a variational one is by adding a correction term. In the paper, we propose a way of obtaining such a correction term, based on the so-called Vainberg-Tonti Lagrangian, and present several applications in general relativity and classical mechanics.

We present a new class of solutions for the inverse problem in the calculus of variations in arbitrary dimension $n$. This is the problem of determining the existence and uniqueness of Lagrangians for systems of $n$ second order ordinary differential equations. We also provide a number of new theorems concerning the inverse problem using exterior differential systems theory (EDS). Concentrating on the differential step of the EDS process, our new results provide a significant...

Newtonian, Lagrangian, and Hamiltonian dynamical systems are well formalized mathematically. They give rise to geometric structures describing motion of a point in smooth manifolds. Riemannian metric is a different geometric structure formalizing concepts of length and angle. The interplay of Riemannian metric and its metric connection with mechanical structures produces some features which are absent in the case of general (non-Riemannian) manifolds. The aim of present paper...

Hamilton's principle of stationary action lies at the foundation of theoretical physics and is applied in many other disciplines from pure mathematics to economics. Despite its utility, Hamilton's principle has a subtle pitfall that often goes unnoticed in physics: it is formulated as a boundary value problem in time but is used to derive equations of motion that are solved with initial data. This subtlety can have undesirable effects. I present a formulation of Hamilton's pr...

Making use of the modern techniques of non-holonomic geometry and constrained variational calculus, a revisitation of Ostrogradsky's Hamiltonian formulation of the evolution equations determined by a Lagrangian of order >= 2 in the derivatives of the configuration variables is presented.

A Lagrangian system with singularities is considered. The configuration space is a non-compact manifold that depends on time. A set of periodic solutions has been found.

Special relativity beyond its basic treatment can be inaccessible, in particular because introductory physics courses typically view special relativity as decontextualized from the rest of physics. We seek to place special relativity back in its physics context, and to make the subject approachable. The Lagrangian formulation of special relativity follows logically by combining the Lagrangian approach to mechanics and the postulates of special relativity. In this paper, we de...