Commutativity in Lagrangian and Hamiltonian mechanics (Q2633473)

Let $M$ be a smooth compact manifold and $L:TM\rightarrow \mathbb{R}$ a Lagrangian with its action functional $S[q]$ on continuous paths $q:[t_1, t_2]\rightarrow M$. The critical value of action, namely $S(q_1, q_2, t_2-t_1)=\min \{S[q]; q(t_1)=q_1, q(t_2)=q_2\}$, is called \textit{principal action function}. Let now $L_1$ and $L_2$ be two regular Lagrangians. The first main result of this note is: \par Theorem 1.1. The principal action functions satisfy $\min_{q_1\in M}(S_1(q_0, q_1, t_1)+S_2(q_1, q_{12}, t_2))=\min_{q_2\in M}(S_2(q_0, q_2, t_2)+S_1(q_2, q_{12}, t_1))$ for all $(q_0, q_{12})$ from some neighbourhood of the diagonal in $M\times M$ and for all sufficiently small $t_1, t_2>0$ if and only if their Hamiltonian functions Poisson commute, $\{H_1, H_2\}=0$. The second main result is the discrete time version of the above theorem. An example of application of Theorem 1.1 consists in vertex models solvable by the transfer matrix method.