Hostname: page-component-6bf8c574d5-7jkgd Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2025-02-20T19:59:36.896Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Conservation laws and variational sequences in gauge-natural theories

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  18 May 2001

L. FATIBENE ,
M. FRANCAVIGLIA  and
M. PALESE
L. FATIBENE
Affiliation:
Department of Mathematics, University of Turin, Via C. Alberto 10, 10123 Turin, Italy. e-mail: [email protected], [email protected], [email protected]
M. FRANCAVIGLIA
Affiliation:
Department of Mathematics, University of Turin, Via C. Alberto 10, 10123 Turin, Italy. e-mail: [email protected], [email protected], [email protected]
M. PALESE
Affiliation:
Department of Mathematics, University of Turin, Via C. Alberto 10, 10123 Turin, Italy. e-mail: [email protected], [email protected], [email protected]
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

In the classical Lagrangian approach to conservation laws of gauge-natural field theories a suitable vector density is known to generate the so-called conserved Noether currents. It turns out that along any section of the relevant gauge-natural bundle this density is the divergence of a skew-symmetric tensor density, which is called a superpotential for the conserved currents.

We describe gauge-natural superpotentials in the framework of finite order variational sequences according to Krupka. We refer to previous results of ours on variational Lie derivatives concerning abstract versions of Noether's theorems, which are here interpreted in terms of ‘horizontal’ and ‘vertical’ conserved currents. The gauge-natural lift of principal automorphisms implies suitable linearity properties of the Lie derivative operator. Thus abstract results due to Kolář, concerning the integration by parts procedure, can be applied to prove the existence and globality of superpotentials in a very general setting.

Type
Research Article
Information
Mathematical Proceedings of the Cambridge Philosophical Society , Volume 130 , Issue 3 , May 2001 , pp. 555 - 569
Copyright
2001 Cambridge Philosophical Society

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

Footnotes

Work partially supported by GNFM of INDAM, MURST, University of Turin.