Necessary and sufficient conditions for the existence of a Lagrangian in field theory. I. Variational approach to self-adjointness for tensorial field equations

Abstract

In this paper we identify some of the most significant references on the inverse problem of the calculus of variations for single integrals and initiate the study of the generalization of the underlying methodology to classical field theories. We first classify Lorentz-covariant tensorial field equations into nonlinear, quasi-linear, and semilinear forms, and then introduce their systems of equations of variation and adjoint systems. The necessary and sufficient conditions for the self-adjointness of class C 2, regular, tensorial, nonlinear, quasi-linear and semilinear forms are worked out. We study the Lagrange equations, their system of equations of variations (Jacobi equations) and their adjoint system by proving that, for class C 4 and regular Lagrangian densities, they are always self-adjoint. We then introduce a concept of analytic representation which occurs when the Lagrange equations coincide with the field equations up to equivalence transformations and refine the definition by particularizing it as direct or indirect and ordered or nonordered. Some of the conventional cases of tensorial fields are considered and we prove, in particular, that the conventional representation of the complex scalar field in interaction with the electromagnetic field is of the ordered indirect type. For the objective of identifying our program we recall the two classes of equivalence transformations of the Lagrangian densities which are primarily used nowadays, namely, the Lorentz (coordinate) transformations and the gauge transformations (transformations of fields within a fixed coordinate system), and postulate the existence of a third class, which we term isotopic transformations of the Lagrangian density and which consist of equivalence transformations within a fixed coordinate system and gauge. We finally outline the objectives of our program, which essentially consist of the identification of the necessary and sufficient conditions for the existence of a Lagrangian in field theories and their first application to the transformation theory within the framework of our variational approach to self-adjointness.