On covariant Poisson brackets in field theory

Abstract

A general approach is proposed to constructing covariant Poisson brackets in the space of histories of a classical field-theoretical model. The approach is based on the concept of Lagrange anchor, which was originally developed as a tool for path-integral quantization of Lagrangian and non-Lagrangian dynamics. The proposed covariant Poisson brackets generalize the Peierls' bracket construction known in the Lagrangian field theory.