Dirac structures on tangent bundles: a geometric framework for variational principles, constrained dynamics, and symmetry reduction

Mathematical Physics [Submitted on 18 Jun 2026] Title:Dirac structures on tangent bundles: a geometric framework for variational principles, constrained dynamics, and symmetry reduction View PDF HTML (experimental)Abstract:We introduce a Dirac structure on the tangent bundle of a configuration manifold, called a \textit{Lagrange--Dirac structure}, which is naturally induced by the Lagrangian two-form associated with a (possibly degenerate) Lagrangian and a constraint distribution. This structure provides a unified geometric framework for Lagrange--Dirac dynamical systems, encompassing nonholonomic, degenerate Lagrangian, and symmetric systems. In the hyperregular case, the system recovers a first-order formulation of the Lagrange--d'Alembert equations. Although nonholonomic dynamics does not preserve the Lagrangian two-form, we show that the underlying Lagrange--Dirac structure is preserved up to gauge transformations, yielding a natural gauge covariance property. We also formulate an intrinsic variational principle directly on the tangent bundle, referred to as the \textit{Lagrange--d'Alembert--Dirac principle}, which recovers Hamilton's principle in the unconstrained case and the Lagrange--d'Alembert principle in the hyperregular constrained case. Furthermore, we develop a reduction theory for systems with Lie group symmetry, deriving a reduced Lagrange--Dirac structure over the Lie algebra that yields the Euler--Poincaré--Dirac equations and a corresponding reduced variational principle. Finally, we illustrate the theory through examples including charged particles, electric circuits, and systems with Lagrangians linear in velocity, and present an infinite-dimensional extension to ideal fluids that naturally incorporates the incompressibility constraint and recovers the Euler equations. Current browse context: math-ph References & Citations Loading... Bibliographic and Citation Tools Bibliographic Explorer (What is the Explorer?) Connected Papers (What is Connected Papers?) Litmaps (What is Litmaps?) scite Smart Citations (What are Smart Citations?) Code, Data and Media Associated with this Article alphaXiv (What is alphaXiv?) CatalyzeX Code Finder for Papers (What is CatalyzeX?) DagsHub (What is DagsHub?) Gotit.pub (What is GotitPub?) Hugging Face (What is Huggingface?) ScienceCast (What is ScienceCast?) Demos Recommenders and Search Tools Influence Flower (What are Influence Flowers?) CORE Recommender (What is CORE?) arXivLabs: experimental projects with community collaborators arXivLabs is a framework that allows collaborators to develop and share new arXiv features directly on our website. Both individuals and organizations that work with arXivLabs have embraced and accepted our values of openness, community, excellence, and user data privacy. arXiv is committed to these values and only works with partners that adhere to them. Have an idea for a project that will add value for arXiv's community? Learn more about arXivLabs.