Nonlocal constants of motion in Lagrangian Dynamics of any order

Abstract

We describe a recipe to generate "nonlocal" constants of motion for ODE Lagrangian systems. As a sample application, we recall a nonlocal constant of motion for dissipative mechanical systems, from which we can deduce global existence and estimates of solutions under fairly general assumptions. Then we review a generalization to Euler-Lagrange ODEs of order higher than two, leading to first integrals for the Pais-Uhlenbeck oscillator and other systems. Future developments may include adaptations of the theory to Euler-Lagrange PDEs.