The Euler-Lagrange expression and degenerate lagrange densities

Abstract

It is well known that many of the field equations from theoretical physics (e.g. Einstein field equations, Maxwell's equations, Klein-Gordon equation) can be obtained from a variational principle with a suitably chosen Lagrange density. In the case of the Einstein equations the corresponding Lagrangian is degenerate (i.e., the associated Euler-Lagrange equations are of second order whereas in general these would be of fourth order), while in the cases of the Maxwell and Klein-Gordon equations the Lagrangian usually used is not degenerate.