Tuesday, August 25, 2015

velocity - Functional derivative in Lagrangian field theory


The following functional derivative holds: δq(t)δq(t) = δ(tt)

and δ˙q(t)δq(t) = δ(tt)
where is d/dt.


Question: What is δq(t)δ˙q(t)?

I'm asking this because in QFT, the lecturer defined the canonical momentum field to ϕ by π(x,t) := δL(t)δ˙ϕ(x,t),
where L is the Lagrangian, a functional of the field: L[ϕ,μϕ]=ddxL(ϕ,μϕ).


I know I should get π(x,t) = L(x,t)˙ϕ(x,t).

(Note it's now a partial derivative with respect to the Lagrangian density.) But doing it I get: δL=ddxLϕδϕ+Lμϕδμϕ.
So somehow we ignore the first term ddxLϕδϕ! Why is that?



It can't be that we are treating δϕ and δ˙ϕ as independent because if I were to take the functional derivative w.r.t. ϕ(x), I would have to move the dot from δ˙ϕ over to L˙ϕ which will give me


ddx(LϕμLμϕ)δϕ


i.e. the functional derivative gives the Euler-Lagrange equations.


So how to I take the functional derivative of a functional w.r.t to the derivative of a function?




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