Noether’s currents for conformable fractional scalar field theories

Abstract

The construction of fractional derivatives with the right properties for use in field theory is reputed to be a difficult task, essentially because of the absence of a unique definition and uniform properties. The conformable fractional derivative introduced in 2014 by Khalil et al. in their seminal paper is a novel and well-behaved definition of fractional derivative for a function that is derivable in the usual sense. In this paper, we investigate the consistency of the Euler–Lagrange formalism for a field theory defined on such a fractional space–time. We especially focus on the relation between symmetries and conservation laws (Noether’s currents), about the symmetry group introduced to construct the Lagrangian of the field. In particular, we show that the use of the conformable derivative induces additional terms in the calculation of the action variation. We also investigate the conservation of the Noether current and show that this property only takes place on condition that the equations of motion are verified with a new definition of the conserved law.