Joris Vankerschaver

Unambiguous formalism for higher order Lagrangian field theories

The aim of this paper is to propose an unambiguous intrinsic formalism for higher order field theories which avoids the arbitrariness in the generalization of the conventional description of field theories, and implies the existence of different Cartan forms and Legendre transformations. We propose a differential-geometric setting for the dynamics of a higher order field theory, based on the Skinner and Rusk formalism for mechanics. This approach incorporates aspects of both the Lagrangian and the Hamiltonian description, since the field equations are formulated using the Lagrangian on a higher order jet bundle and the canonical multisymplectic form on its affine dual. As both of these objects are uniquely defined, the Skinner–Rusk approach has the advantage that it does not suffer from the arbitrariness in conventional descriptions. The result is that we obtain a unique and global intrinsic version of the Euler–Lagrange equations for higher order field theories. Several examples illustrate our construction.

Geometric aspects of nonholonomic field theories

A geometric model for nonholonomic Lagrangian field theory is studied. The multisymplectic approach to such a theory as well as the corresponding Cauchy formalism are discussed. It is shown that in both formulations the relevant equations for the constrained system can be recovered by a suitable projection of the equations for the underlying free (i.e. unconstrained) Lagrangian system.

Routhian reduction for quasi-invariant Lagrangians

In this paper, we describe Routhian reduction as a special case of standard symplectic reduction, also called Marsden–Weinstein reduction. We use this correspondence to present a generalization of Routhian reduction for quasi-invariant Lagrangians, i.e., Lagrangians that are invariant up to a total time derivative. We show how functional Routhian reduction can be seen as a particular instance of reduction in a quasi-invariant Lagrangian, and we exhibit a Routhian reduction procedure for the special case of Lagrangians with quasicyclic coordinates. As an application, we consider the dynamics of a charged particle in a magnetic field.

Discrete Lagrangian field theories on Lie groupoids

Abstract We present a geometric framework for discrete classical field theories, where fields are modeled as “morphisms” defined on a discrete grid in the base space, and take values in a Lie groupoid. We describe the basic geometric set-up and derive the field equations from a variational principle. We also show that the solutions of these equations are multisymplectic in the sense of Bridges and Marsden. The groupoid framework employed here allows us to recover not only some previously known results on discrete multisymplectic field theories, but also to derive a number of new results, most notably a notion of discrete Lie–Poisson equations and discrete reduction. In a final section, we establish the connection with discrete differential geometry and gauge theories on a lattice.

Euler-Poincare reduction for discrete field theories

In this note, we develop a theory of Euler-Poincare reduction for discrete Lagrangian field theories. We introduce the concept of Euler-Poincare equations for discrete field theories, as well as a natural extension of the Moser-Veselov scheme, and show that both are equivalent. The resulting discrete field equations are interpreted in terms of discrete differential geometry. An application to the theory of discrete harmonic mappings is also briefly discussed.

A Novel Formulation of Point Vortex Dynamics on the Sphere: Geometrical and Numerical Aspects

In this paper, we present a novel Lagrangian formulation of the equations of motion for point vortices on the unit 2-sphere. We show first that no linear Lagrangian formulation exists directly on the 2-sphere but that a Lagrangian may be constructed by pulling back the dynamics to the 3-sphere by means of the Hopf fibration. We then use the isomorphism of the 3-sphere with the Lie group SU(2) to derive a variational Lie group integrator for point vortices which is symplectic, second-order, and preserves the unit-length constraint. At the end of the paper, we compare our integrator with classical fourth-order Runge–Kutta, the second-order midpoint method, and a standard Lie group Munthe-Kaas method.

The dynamics of a rigid body in potential flow with circulation

We consider the motion of a two-dimensional body of arbitrary shape in a planar irrotational, incompressible fluid with a given amount of circulation around the body. We derive the equations of motion for this system by performing symplectic reduction with respect to the group of volume-preserving diffeomorphisms and obtain the relevant Poisson structures after a further Poisson reduction with respect to the group of translations and rotations. In this way, we recover the equations of motion given for this system by Chaplygin and Lamb, and we give a geometric interpretation for the Kutta-Zhukowski force as a curvature-related effect. In addition, we show that the motion of a rigid body with circulation can be understood as a geodesic flow on a central extension of the special Euclidian group SE(2), and we relate the cocycle in the description of this central extension to a certain curvature tensor.

Generating functionals and Lagrangian partial differential equations

The main goal of this paper is to derive an alternative characterization of the multisymplectic form formula for classical field theories using the geometry of the space of boundary values. We review the concept of Type-I/II generating functionals defined on the space of boundary data of a Lagrangian field theory. On the Lagrangian side, we define an analogue of Jacobi’s solution to the Hamilton–Jacobi equation for field theories, and we show that by taking variational derivatives of this functional, we obtain an isotropic submanifold of the space of Cauchy data, described by the so-called multisymplectic form formula. As an example of the latter, we show that Lorentz’s reciprocity principle in electromagnetism is a particular instance of the multisymplectic form formula. We also define a Hamiltonian analogue of Jacobi’s solution, and we show that this functional is a Type-II generating functional. We finish the paper by defining a similar framework of generating functions for discrete field theories, and we show that for the linear wave equation, we recover the multisymplectic conservation law of Bridges. ∗Current Address: Imperial College London, London SW7 2AZ, UK. Email: Joris.Vankerschaver@ gmail.com. †Current Address: Department of Mathematics, Jiangnan University. No.1800 Lihu Avenue, Wuxi, Jiangsu, 214122, China. Email: liaocuicuilcc@gmail.com. ‡Email: mleok@math.ucsd.edu. 1 ar X iv :1 11 1. 02 80 v2 [ m at hph ] 2 0 Ju n 20 13

A class of nonholonomic kinematic constraints in elasticity

We propose a first example of a simple classical field theory with nonholonomic constraints. Our model is a straightforward modification of a Cosserat rod. Based on a mechanical analogy, we argue that the constraint forces should be modelled in a special way, and we show how such a procedure can be naturally implemented in the framework of geometric field theory. Finally, we derive the equations of motion and we propose a geometric integration scheme for the dynamics of a simplified model.

Stokes-Dirac structures through reduction of infinite-dimensional Dirac structures

We consider the concept of Stokes-Dirac structures in boundary control theory proposed by van der Schaft and Maschke. We introduce Poisson reduction in this context and show how Stokes-Dirac structures can be derived through symmetry reduction from a canonical Dirac structure on the unreduced phase space. In this way, we recover not only the standard structure matrix of Stokes-Dirac structures, but also the typical non-canonical advection terms in (for instance) the Euler equation.