Applications of variational principles to classical perturbation theory in general relativity

The equations satisfied by perturbation of solutions of the Euler-Lagrange equations corresponding to a Lagrangian density L are derived from the first and second variations of L and these new Lagrangian densities are used to construct Noether and Euler identities. It is shown how these identities can be used in general relativity to construct conserved quantities and local uniqueness theorems. (author)