Seminar talk, 9 December 2009

Speaker: Raffaele Vitolo

Title: A survey on global aspects of the inverse problem of the calculus of variations

Abstract:
In this talk I will review some aspects of the inverse problem of the calculus of variations, describing some open problems. More in detail, the topics of the seminar will be:

1 - Brief history and formulation of the problem in geometric terms.

2 - On different formulations of Helmholtz conditions and their uniqueness.

3 - On the invariant inverse problem, main results.

If time permits, the problem of finding minimal order Lagrangians for a given Euler-Lagrange equation will be discussed too.