Equivalence of higher order Lagrangians. I: Formulation and reduction (Q1814259)

The problem to transform a variational problem into an equivalent one by a suitable change of variables is of large interest in a physical context where variational methods are applied. E. Cartan developed a powerful method which produces necessary and sufficient conditions for the solution of such equivalence problems and began direct investigations into specific equivalence problems from the calculus of variations. Subsequent research has almost exclusively concentrated on first order Lagrangians. In this paper the authors studied the equivalence problem for higher order Lagrangians which led to emphasis on novel phenomena not present in the first order case.