On the Variational Characterisation of Generalized Jacobi Equations

Biagio Casciaro, Mauro Francaviglia, Victor Tapia

We study higher--order variational derivatives of a generic second--order Lagrangian $\mathcal{L}=\mathcal{L}(x,\varphi ,\partial \varphi ,{\partial }^2\varphi )$ and in this context we discuss the Jacobi equati…