Nonautonomous k-contact field theories

Abstract

This paper provides a new geometric framework to describe non-conservative field theories with explicit dependence on the space–time coordinates by combining the k-cosymplectic and k-contact formulations. This geometric framework, the k-cocontact geometry, permits the development of Hamiltonian and Lagrangian formalisms for these field theories. We also compare this new formulation in the autonomous case with the previous k-contact formalism. To illustrate the theory, we study the nonlinear damped wave equation with external time-dependent forcing.