New progress in the inverse problem in the calculus of variations (Q5964093): Difference between revisions

This long paper discusses the inverse problem of the calculus of variations by studying the cases when some eigen co-distributions are integrable and some are not, using exterior differential systems (EDS) theory. On this way, a number of quite general results are obtained. Among these interesting theorems and propositions, Theorem 3.12 is particularly useful in indicating non-existence cases. In addition, it suggests a scheme to replace the four cases of Douglas in the treatment of the problem in arbitrary dimension (cf. [\textit{J. Douglas}, Trans. Am. Math. Soc. 50, 71--128 (1941; Zbl 0025.18102)]). For example, it is obtained that when the Jacobi endomorphism \(\Phi \) is diagonalisable over reals then the integrability of the co-distributions must be considered first and the termination of the differential step second; this scheme is detailed in Section 6.