Sur le problème inverse du calcul des variations : existence de lagrangiens associés à un spray dans le cas isotrope. (On the inverse problem of the variational calculus: existence of Lagrangians associated with a spray in the isotropic case.) (Q1294749)

The main purpose of the present paper is to give a generalization to general dimension \(n\) of the classical results of \textit{J. Douglas} [Trans. Am. Math. Soc. 50, 71-128 (1941; Zbl 0025.18102)]. The given generalization uses the natural formalism on the tangent bundle of a differentiable manifold and the Spencer-Goldschmidt version of the Cartan-Kähler theorem. First of all it is generalized Theorem I of Douglas concerning the sprays for which the tensor of Douglas is proportional to the vertical endomorphism. These sprays are always variational. The most important part of the paper concerns the study of the sprays called isotropic, for which the tensor of Douglas is of the type \({\lambda}J +{\alpha}{\otimes}C\), where \(J\) is the vertical endomorphism (the almost tangent structure) and \(C\) is the canonical field (the Liouville vector field) on the tangent bundle. In a certain sense, the isotropic sprays generalize the equations of geodesics on the Riemannian or Finslerian manifolds with constant curvature to the case of manifolds endowed with a nonhomogeneous Lagrangian. The necessary and sufficient conditions for an isotropic spray to be variational are studied. The obtained conditions depend on the geometry of the distribution \({\mathcal{D}}\) defined by the canonical field and by the spray. The case when the distribution \({\mathcal{D}}\) is integrable (in particular, the homogeneous and quadratic sprays satisfy this case) is also studied and some remarks concerning the general case (when the distribution \({\mathcal{D}}\) is not integrable) are given at the end of this paper.