Contact transformations, Huygen's principle, and calculus of variations

DOI10.1007/BF01235531MaRDI QIDQ1332704zbMATH OpenFDO

Authors S. Hildebrandt

Publication date 22 March 1995

Published in Calculus of Variations and Partial Differential Equations (Search for Journal in Brave)

Full work available at URL https://doi.org/10.1007/BF01235531

zbMATH Keywords

Huygens' principleMayer fieldMayer flowray-wave duality in geometrical optics

Mathematics Subject Classification ID

Linear first-order PDEs (35F05) Hamilton-Jacobi theories (49L99) Hamilton-Jacobi equations in mechanics (70H20)

Review text

In the one-dimensional calculus of variations the notions of a Mayer flow and a Mayer field are fundamental concepts. For the convenience of the reader we have briefly recalled how these notions enter and what role they play. In particular they lead to a well-known mathematical model of the ray-wave duality in geometrical optics. Another model of this duality is provided by the theory of contact transformations, that is, by contact geometry. This approach leads to the notions of a Huygens field and a Huygens flow as fundamental concepts, which are investigated in our paper. In particular we explain by means of Huygens' principle why this new terminology might be appropriate. Formulas connected with Hölder's transformation are supplied, and we describe four different but equivalent pictures of the one-dimensional calculus of variations. Finally, we refer to some of the sources of this paper, in particular to the fundamental work of E. Hölder.

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Cites work

• Die infinitesimalen Berührungstransformationen der Variationsrechnung
• scientific article; zbMATH DE number 703943 (Why is no real title available?)
• scientific article; zbMATH DE number 862903 (Why is no real title available?)
• scientific article; zbMATH DE number 3093398 (Why is no real title available?)

Cited in

(6)

• Quantum gravity: meaning and measurement
• On a variational principle in thermodynamics
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• Contact Transformations in Classical Mechanics
• The variational principle, conformal and disformal transformations, and the degrees of freedom
• Christiaan Huygens and contact geometry

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