On the existence of variational principles for differential-difference evolution equations (Q2446232)

The problem of constructing a certain functional for a given operator is known as the Inverse Problem of the Calculus of Variations (IPCV). For wide classes of partial differential equations, various techniques have been developed to determine whether they are variational or not based on the structure of the corresponding operators. Moreover, various methods have been proposed for symmetrizing these equations by means of variational multipliers. There is theoretical and practical interest in extending the above results to various classes of functional differential equations. For certain types of such equations, the analysis of IPCVs has been initiated only recently. The main goal of this study is to find necessary and sufficient conditions for the existence of solutions to IPCVs for new classes of partial differential-difference equations and developing methods for constructing variational multipliers in the case of equations with nonpotential operators.