High-order Field Theory and Weak Euler-Lagrange-Barut Equation for Classical Relativistic Particle-Field Systems

Abstract

It is widely accepted that conservation laws, especially energy-momentum conservation, have fundamental importance for both classical and quantum systems in physics. A widely used method to derive the conservation laws is based on Noether's theorem. However, for classical relativistic particle-field systems, this process is still impeded. Different from the quantum situation, the obstruction emerged when we regard the particle's field as a classical world line. The difficulties come from two aspects. One is the mass-shell constraint and the other comes from the heterogeneous-manifolds that particles and fields reside on. This study develops a general geometric (manifestly covariant) field theory for classical relativistic particle-field systems. In considering the mass-shell constraint, the Euler-Lagrange-Barut (ELB) equation as a geometric version of the Euler-Lagrange (EL) equation is applied to determine the world lines of the relativistic particles. As a differential equation in the standard field theory, the infinitesimal criterion of the symmetry condition is converted into an integro-differential equation. To overcome the second difficulty, we develop a weak ELB equation on the 4D space-time. The weak version of the ELB equation will play an essential role in establishing the connections between symmetries and local conservation laws. Using field theory together with the weak ELB equation developed here, the conservation laws can be systematically derived from the symmetries that the systems admit.