Discrete calculus of variations for quadratic lagrangians

Abstract

We develop in this paper a new framework for discrete calculus of variations when the actions have densities involving an arbitrary discretization operator. We deduce the discrete Euler-Lagrange equations for piecewise continuous critical points of sampled actions. Then we characterize the discretization operators such that, for all quadratic lagrangian, the discrete Euler-Lagrange equations converge to the classical ones.