Variational contact symmetries of constrained Lagrangians (Q5962620)

The authors investigate contact symmetries of re-parametrized invariant quadratic Lagrangians with finite degrees of freedom. They are especially interested in symmetry generators depending linearly on the velocities. They establish that the integrals of motion, which are linear or quadratic in velocities, are generated by the conformal Killing vectors or tensors of the configuration space metric deduced from the kinetic part of the Lagrangian. The freedom of re-parametrization allows to rescale the lapse function, so that the potential becomes constant. In this case the integrals of motion can be constructed from the Killing fields and Killing tensors of the scaled metric. A rather interesting result is the non-necessity of the gauge function in Noether's theorem due to the presence of the Hamiltonian constraint. The examples of geodesics of a pp-wave spacetime and the constrained two-dimensional Hamiltonian Ermakov-Ray-Reid system are considered.