Published January 23, 2024 | Version v1
Journal article Open

Constraint characterization and degree of freedom counting in Lagrangian field theory

  • 1. Universitäts-Sternwarte, Fakultät für Physik, Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität München, Scheinerstraße 1, 81679 München, Germany
  • 2. Excellence Cluster ORIGINS, Boltzmannstraße 2, 85748 Garching bei München, Germany
  • 3. Facultad de Física, Universidad Veracruzana, Paseo No. 112, Desarrollo Habitacional Nuevo Xalapa, 91097 Xalapa-Enríquez, Mexico
  • 4. Department of Philosophy of Nature and Technology, Munich School of Philosophy, Kaulbachstraße 31a, 80539 München, Germany

Description

We present a Lagrangian approach to counting degrees of freedom in first-order field theories. The emphasis is on the systematic attainment of a complete set of constraints. In particular, we provide the first comprehensive procedure to ensure the functional independence of all constraints and discuss in detail the possible closures of the constraint algorithm. We argue degrees of freedom can but need not correspond to physical modes. The appendix comprises fully worked out, physically relevant examples of varying complexity.

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10.1103_PhysRevD.109.025010.pdf

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Additional details

Identifiers

DOI
10.1103/PhysRevD.109.025010;
arXiv
arXiv:2310.12218;
Crossref Funder ID
10.13039/501100001659;

Publishing Information

Journal Title
Physical Review D
Journal Volume
109
Journal Issue
2
Journal Page Range
17 pgs.
ISSN
1089-4918

Optional Information

Contract/Grant/Project number
898686
Notes
Contact Email: vero.erdi@origins-cluster.de; Contact Email: markus.maier@hfph.de; Contact Email: julmendez@uv.mx; Record automatically processed
Funding organization
Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft; CONAHCYT's Estancias Posdoctorales por México