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Em Variational Mathematical Prerequisites
1 · Prerequisites
- Absolute and Conditional Convergence; Rearrangement; Products
- Areas of Elementary Plane Figures
- Binary Operations, Monoids, Groups and Subgroups
- Compactness
- Compactness in Metric Spaces
- Completeness, Completion, and Uniform Continuity
- Construction of the Natural Numbers
- Construction of the Real Numbers via Cauchy Sequences
- Construction of the Real Numbers via Dedekind Cuts
- Continuity, IVT, EVT, and Uniform Continuity
- Cosets, Index and Lagrange's Theorem
- Countability and Uncountability
- Countability Axioms and Cardinal Functions
- Density Separability and Convolution in Lᵖ
- Determinants of Matrices over a Commutative Ring
- Distributions Test Functions and Differentiation
- Divisibility, Euclidean Domains, Principal Ideal Domains and Unique Factorisation
- Dual Spaces, Bilinear and Quadratic Forms, and Sylvester's Law of Inertia
- Em Elementary Mathematical Prerequisites
- Em Minkowski Mathematical Prerequisites
- Exterior Powers, Orientation and Hodge Duality
- Filters and Ultrafilters
- Finite Counting, Factorials and Binomial Coefficients
- Foundations of the Real Numbers for Analysis
- Fubini and Change of Variables
- Gaussian Elimination, Elementary Matrices and Reduced Row Echelon Form
- Group Actions, Orbits, Stabilisers and Cayley's Theorem
- Ideals, Quotient Rings and the Isomorphism Theorems for Rings
- Inner Product Spaces, Gram-Schmidt, Projections and Adjoints
- Lebesgue Measure on Euclidean Space
- Limits of Real Functions
- limsup, liminf, and Subsequential Limits
- Linear Algebra Methods in Combinatorics
- Linear Independence, Bases and Dimension
- Linear Transformations, Rank-Nullity and Quotient Spaces
- Matrices, the Matrix of a Linear Map, and Change of Basis
- Measurable Densities and Radon Volume on Manifolds
- Measurable Functions and Simple Approximation
- Measures and Their Basic Properties
- Metric Spaces
- Mixed Partials, Taylor Formulae, and Extrema
- Monotone Functions, Discontinuities, and Continuity Sets
- Monotone Sequences, Bolzano-Weierstrass, and Cauchy Completeness
- Normal Subgroups and Quotient Groups
- Order, Zorn's Lemma, and the Axiom of Choice
- Outer Measure and the Caratheodory Extension Theorem
- pi: the Equivalent Characterizations
- Polynomial Rings, the Division Algorithm and Roots
- Power Series and Real-Analytic Functions
- Product Measures and the Fubini Tonelli Theorems
- Properties of the Integral and the Working FTC
- Regular Surfaces and Surface Integrals
- Relations, Functions, and Quotients
- Rings, Subrings, Integral Domains and Fields
- Rⁿ as a Normed Space; Vector-Valued Functions
- Roots, Rational Powers, and Classical Inequalities
- Schwartz Space and the Plancherel Theorem
- Separation Axioms: the Hierarchy
- Sequences and Limits
- Sequences and Series of Functions; Uniform Convergence
- Series: Convergence and the Nonnegative Tests
- Sigma Algebras and Borel Sets
- Simple Field Extensions and the Construction of the Complex Numbers
- Sine, Cosine, and the Definition of Pi
- Subspaces, Products, and Quotients
- Suprema and Infima
- Symmetric Groups, Cycle Decomposition and the Sign Homomorphism
- The Cantor Set, Baire Category, and Measure Zero in ℝ
- The Derivative and the Mean Value Theorems
- The Determinant of a Linear Operator, Cofactors and Cramer's Rule
- The Exponential Function
- The Inverse and Implicit Function Theorems
- The Inverse Function Theorem Completed
- The Lebesgue Integral and the Convergence Theorems
- The Logarithm and General Powers
- The Lᵖ Spaces Holder Minkowski and Riesz Fischer
- The Maximal Function and Lebesgue Differentiation
- The Riemann Integral in Rᵐ and Jordan Content
- The Riemann Integral: Definition and Integrability
- The Topology of Euclidean Space
- The Total Derivative in ℝᵐ → ℝⁿ
- The ZFC Axioms and the Basic Set Constructions
- Topological Spaces and Continuity
- Topology of ℝ
- Triangularisation, Generalised Eigenspaces and Jordan Canonical Form
- Vector Spaces, Linear Subspaces, Span and Direct Sums
- Weak Derivatives and Sobolev Spaces
2 · Summary
The variational core of the electromagnetic action layer, developed as pure mathematics on Euclidean space. The lemma The fundamental lemma of the calculus of variations for continuous coefficients states the fundamental lemma of the calculus of variations for continuous coefficients: under Countable Choice, an open set and a continuous ; if for every compactly supported smooth test field , then pointwise on , with the scalar case the source of a contradiction argument that tests the nonnegative bump and uses the contrapositive of Localization: vanishing integrals or fluxes force a continuous function to vanish. The lemma Compact variations of the quadratic field functional: first variation and the coefficient equation fixes the Minkowski index conventions on and studies for a bounded open with closure inside an open neighbourhood of the smooth fields: it proves finite, expands as the quadratic polynomial with first variation , converts that first variation by the weak-derivative test identity into , and shows that stationarity for the compactly supported class is equivalent to the coefficient equation on . Existence of stationary fields and every physical identification of , or are explicitly not asserted.
All items are mathematics: they carry domain: mathematics, depend only on
mathematical suppliers, and assert no physical conclusion. Countable Choice is
declared and used exactly through the localization lemma, the classical-to-weak
derivative comparison and the Borel measurability of continuous functions, as
each item records. The companion examples page
em-variational-mathematical-prerequisites-examples records the hypothesis
and convention boundaries of these two lemmas.
3 · Logical flowchart
4 · Definitions, postulates, theorems and proofs
The fundamental lemma of the calculus of variations for continuous coefficients
Statement
Assume the Axiom of Countable Choice (). Let , let be open, and let be continuous. If for every , then on . Here is the Euclidean inner product and is the finite sum of integrals of continuous compactly supported functions (Integral over a measurable subset). The scalar case is : a continuous with for every vanishes on . The vector case is deduced from the scalar case componentwise, each component tested separately. The conclusion is pointwise on , and the hypothesis is the full family of compactly supported smooth test functions. The Axiom of Countable Choice is declared because the localization lemma Localization: vanishing integrals or fluxes force a continuous function to vanish and the measurability fact Continuous functions on Euclidean spaces are Borel measurable used in the recorded proof assume it; no other choice principle enters.
Conventions. is the space of smooth -valued functions with compact support in , defined componentwise in the sense of Euclidean maps and diffeomorphisms and Test function space d of an open set. Each product is continuous on and vanishes outside a compact subset of , and denotes the Lebesgue integral of its zero extension to , where is -dimensional Lebesgue measure (Integrable real and complex functions, and their integrals); [F5] and [F6] below record that this is a finite real number and that for a nonnegative integrand it agrees with the nonnegative integral over the measurable set of Integral over a measurable subset.
Facts & Assumptions
Given: The Axiom of Countable Choice ; naturals ; an open set ; a continuous with for every ; and, inside the contradiction argument below, a point with .
Cutoff lemma, in ZF: for a compact set with open there is with and on a neighborhood of (Test function cutoffs and euclidean localization).
Localization, under : if is continuous on an open set and for every ball compactly contained in , then on (Localization: vanishing integrals or fluxes force a continuous function to vanish, where is the componentwise integral over the measurable set ). Below we use only its contrapositive form: if for some , then some ball compactly contained in has .
Order and scalar rules for the nonnegative integral (Monotonicity and nonnegative homogeneity of the nonnegative integral): for nonnegative measurable one has , and for one has , while the zero function has integral ; the nonnegative integral over a measurable set of Integral over a measurable subset is an instance of this integral.
Continuity of pairings: if are continuous then is continuous (A vector-valued function has a limit, or is continuous, if and only if each of its components does; with the algebra of continuous vector-valued functions, clause 3); for this is the ordinary product of two continuous real functions under The Euclidean inner product on . In particular the components of are continuous, and for the function lies in and has .
Signed integral (Integrable real and complex functions, and their integrals): for measurable real with at most one of , equal to , one sets ; is integrable when both parts are finite. If then and the signed integral of equals its nonnegative integral, which over a measurable set is the integral of (Integral over a measurable subset); and is definitional from and .
Compactly supported continuous functions have finite integrals: let be continuous with compact support . If then and ; otherwise is a nonempty compact metric space, so is finite (A continuous real-valued function on a nonempty compact metric space is bounded and attains a greatest and a least value), is bounded (A compact subset of a metric space is closed and bounded) hence contained in a closed box with (A box in with parameters is Lebesgue measurable of measure , whichever of its faces are included), is Borel measurable (Continuous functions on Euclidean spaces are Borel measurable, under ), and , so by Monotonicity and nonnegative homogeneity of the nonnegative integral, The nonnegative integral agrees with the simple integral on simple functions and The integral of a nonnegative simple function; thus is integrable by [F5]. In particular each integrand of the hypothesis has a continuous compactly supported zero extension by [F4], and each pairing in the hypothesis is a finite real number.
Continuity in balls (Continuity of a map between metric spaces, at a point and globally, in the - form, Open ball, closed ball and sphere in a metric space): is continuous at when for every real there is with ; and for .
Proof
Suppose the conclusion fails: for some . If , put ; then is continuous and the hypothesis reads for every . If , choose with and put ; for every the function lies in with by [F4], so the hypothesis gives . In both cases is continuous with , and replacing by preserves the vanishing pairing because by [F5]; hence we may assume .
Continuity of at with yields with and for every : taking in [F7] gives with for , and since is open one may shrink to a with , the bound remaining valid on the smaller ball.
Apply [F1] with and : there is with and on a neighborhood of . Extended by zero, lies in and satisfies .
Put , extended by zero to . Then is continuous and compactly supported in by [F4] and [F1], satisfies on because where and for by step 2.1, and has ; hence is not the zero function.
The hypothesis at the admissible test function gives , that is : since , the signed integral equals the nonnegative integral of over the measurable set by [F5], and that integral is a finite real number by [F6].
By the contrapositive localization [F2] applied to the continuous function with , there is a ball compactly contained in with ; as , monotonicity in [F3] applied to the zero function below gives , so this integral is strictly positive.
Since , the nonnegative measurable functions and satisfy pointwise, so monotonicity in [F3] gives , contradicting step 5.2; therefore no point with exists and on .
Compact variations of the quadratic field functional: first variation and the coefficient equation
Statement
Assume the Axiom of Countable Choice (). Let be a bounded open set, let be an open neighbourhood of its closure, let , and let and be smooth ( Euclidean maps and diffeomorphisms). Use the Minkowski form and the index conventions of The Minkowski affine four-space: the form , causal cones, frames and Lorentz maps: denotes the components of in the standard basis, , , , and is the indicated contraction of the components of with the covector . Put and , the -dimensional Lebesgue integral of over . Then is a finite real number, and for every , with and : (a) the map is the quadratic polynomial , where and , so that its derivative at is ; (b) that first variation also equals ; (c) is stationary for , meaning that the derivative in (a) vanishes for every , if and only if for every on , all derivatives being classical partial derivatives of the smooth field . This is a pure mathematical statement about the functional : existence of a stationary field is not asserted, and identifying with the vacuum permeability, with a physical potential or with a physical action is a later physical model choice.
Conventions. Repeated Greek indices are summed over . With the matrix entries in the ordered basis one has , and denotes the entries of the inverse matrix; since is its own inverse, and (The Minkowski affine four-space: the form , causal cones, frames and Lorentz maps). Thus , the lowering map is the componentwise involution with inverse , and likewise for . For the zero extension to is smooth; denotes the map on , and denotes the Lebesgue integral of the zero extension of to (Integrable real and complex functions, and their integrals, Integral over a measurable subset).
Facts & Assumptions
Given: The Axiom of Countable Choice ; a bounded open set ; an open ; a real ; smooth maps ; the Minkowski form and conventions of [F1]; , , and ; and, for parts (a)-(c), a fixed with and .
Minkowski form and index conventions: has the ordered basis , the form is symmetric bilinear with matrix , that matrix is its own inverse, and nondegeneracy and the tensor-component transformation are as stated there (The Minkowski affine four-space: the form , causal cones, frames and Lorentz maps).
Componentwise smoothness, compact support and zero extension: a map is smooth exactly when all its components are, a member of has compact support in the open and extends by zero to a smooth compactly supported map on , and constant-coefficient linear combinations of components preserve smoothness and compact support ( Euclidean maps and diffeomorphisms, Test function space d of an open set). Hence is a bijection of onto with inverse by [F1].
Cutoff functions, in ZF: for compact with open there is with and on a neighborhood of (Test function cutoffs and euclidean localization).
Compactness of the closure: is closed and, since is bounded, bounded; a closed bounded subset of is compact, with no choice principle (Heine-Borel in : with the Euclidean metric a subset of is compact if and only if it is closed and bounded, and the proof by bisection uses no choice principle; the same holds on the real line).
Integrability of continuous compactly supported functions: let be continuous with compact support . If then and ; otherwise is a finite real number (A continuous real-valued function on a nonempty compact metric space is bounded and attains a greatest and a least value), is bounded (A compact subset of a metric space is closed and bounded) and hence contained in a closed box with (A box in with parameters is Lebesgue measurable of measure , whichever of its faces are included), and gives (Monotonicity and nonnegative homogeneity of the nonnegative integral, The nonnegative integral agrees with the simple integral on simple functions, The integral of a nonnegative simple function), so is integrable (Integrable real and complex functions, and their integrals). Under every continuous map between Euclidean spaces is Borel measurable (Continuous functions on Euclidean spaces are Borel measurable), the Borel sigma-algebra is generated by the open sets (The Borel sigma-algebra of a topological space) and every Borel set is Lebesgue measurable (Assuming countable choice, every Borel subset of is Lebesgue measurable); consequently, for a continuous on an open , the zero extension is Borel measurable, because for one has , open as is continuous on the open , while for it is the union of the closed set and that open set, and the rays generate the Borel sigma-algebra.
Signed integrals, monotonicity and linearity: for measurable real with at most one of , infinite one sets , and is integrable when both are finite; for nonnegative measurable the integral over a measurable set is ; if are nonnegative measurable then , and if then , while the zero function has integral ; on the integral is linear, (Integrable real and complex functions, and their integrals, Integral over a measurable subset, Monotonicity and nonnegative homogeneity of the nonnegative integral, The Lebesgue integral is linear on ).
Partial derivatives and their linearity: for a map on an open subset of , is the directional derivative in the standard direction (Directional derivatives and partial derivatives of a map ), and differentiation is linear, for a real constant (Sums and scalar multiples of totally differentiable maps are totally differentiable with the expected derivatives), so componentwise.
Weak derivatives and the test identity, under : a real function of class on an open has each classical partial derivative locally integrable and equal to its weak derivative (Classical derivatives agree with weak derivatives), so for every test function the defining test identity of the weak derivative gives (Weak derivative of a locally integrable function).
Polynomial derivative: for real the polynomial function is differentiable at every real , and ; in particular , the term contributing and the term contributing (For a natural the function is differentiable everywhere with derivative ; for it is the constant , with derivative ; for a natural the function is differentiable at every with derivative ; consequently every polynomial function is differentiable at every real, with the derivative computed term by term, clause 4).
Fundamental variation lemma, under : if a continuous on an open satisfies for every , then on (The fundamental lemma of the calculus of variations for continuous coefficients).
Euclidean inner product: on , so for the arrays and (The Euclidean inner product on ).
Proof
The conventions of [F1] fix the index conventions of the Statement, and and are smooth on because is smooth and is constant; hence is smooth on . The closure is a compact subset of by [F4], so [F3] with and yields with and on .
The product , defined to be outside , is continuous with compact support, so by [F5]; since on , the nonnegative measurable functions and satisfy pointwise on , so [F6] gives ; hence is integrable over and is a finite real number.
The zero extension of to is smooth with compact support in by [F2], and for every real the map is smooth with components by [F1] and [F7]; every product below vanishes outside the compact set , so the corresponding integrands are continuous with compact support and integrable by [F5].
For every real and all one has and on , where and : the first identity is linearity of the partial derivative, and [F7], and the second follows by multiplying by the constant coefficients and collecting terms [F1].
Multiplying out with step 3.1 gives , and : the first equality renames the summation indices, and in the second one substitutes , relabels in the second sum and uses , so the two sums coincide. Since , the source term is , and therefore pointwise on with and .
The functions , , are integrable over by steps 2.1 and 2.2, so linearity of the integral [F6] applied to step 4.1 gives for every real ; thus is the polynomial with the finite real coefficients , and , and [F9] gives . This is (a).
For each fixed the functions , , are of class on the open by step 1.1, and by [F2]; applying [F8] to each of the four functions and summing over gives . Substituting this into step 5.1 and using linearity [F6] yields , which is (b).
Put ; each is continuous on by step 1.1, and by steps 5.1 and 6.1 the first variation of at in the direction equals , where and the pairing is that of [F11]. Assume first that is stationary, so that this first variation vanishes for every . Given any , [F2] provides with , so ; the fundamental variation lemma [F10] applied to the continuous array gives on , that is on for every .
Conversely, if on for every , then and steps 5.1 and 6.1 give vanishing first variation for every , so is stationary; hence stationarity is equivalent to the coefficient equation, which is (c). The point was arbitrary throughout, so (a)-(c) hold as stated; existence of a stationary field and the identifications of , and with physical quantities are not asserted, and the Axiom of Countable Choice entered only through [F5], [F8] and [F10], the expansions of steps 3.1-5.1 being choice-free.
5 · Examples, experiments and counterexamples
None yet.
Sources
- J. Figueroa-O'Farrill, Brief Notes on the Calculus of Variations (University of Edinburgh), §4 Theorem 1, printed pp. 4–5; §12 Theorem 4, printed p. 19; §14 compact-support reformulation, printed p. 23
- David Tong, Electromagnetism (University of Cambridge Part II lecture notes), Chapter 5, §5.5.3 'The Maxwell Action', equations (5.42)–(5.43), printed pp. 124–126
- J. Figueroa-O'Farrill, Brief Notes on the Calculus of Variations (University of Edinburgh), §14 'Classical fields', printed pp. 22–26