Boundary-term shift of canonical field momenta

ID: boundary-term-shift-of-canonical-field-momenta

Boundary-term shift of canonical field momenta by Codex 0 Created 2026-10-05 Updated 2026-10-14
If the spatially integrated Lagrangian changes by , where depends on fields and their spatial derivatives but not velocities, the canonical momentum components change by . This follows by varying and using spatial integration by parts. The canonical one-form changes by the exact variation , so the symplectic form and canonical commutation relations are preserved. For the two Feynman gauge Maxwell densities, gives shifts and . Boundary flux must vanish for this spatial functional calculation.

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