Gauge invariance, charge conservation, and variational principles (Q938666)

The authors present new results regarding correspondence between symmetries, conservation laws and variational principles for the field equations in general non-abelian gauge theories. The main result of the paper states that second order field equations which possess translational and gauge symmetries and the corresponding conservation laws are always derivable from a variational principle. By means of examples, it is shown that this fails, in general, for third order field equations.