The Theorem of Ostrogradsky

Abstract

Ostrogradsky's construction of a Hamiltonian formalism for nondegenerate higher derivative Lagrangians is reviewed. The resulting instability imposes by far the most powerful restriction on fundamental, interacting, continuum Lagrangian field theories. A discussion is given of the problems raised by attempts to evade this restriction.

23 pages, uses LaTeX2e, written for Scholarpedia. Version 2 includes some extra references and matches to Scholarpedia article

References in corpus (2)

• No-ghost theorem for the fourth-order derivative Pais-Uhlenbeck oscillator model
• Third order equations of motion and the Ostrogradsky instability

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