dorsal/arxiv
View SchemaThe recipe for the degrees of freedom
| Authors | Anamaria Hell, Elisa G. M. Ferreira, Dieter Lust, Misao Sasaki |
|---|---|
| Categories | |
| ArXiv ID | 2601.10288vv1 |
| URL | https://arxiv.org/abs/2601.10288 |
| License | http://arxiv.org/licenses/nonexclusive-distrib/1.0/ |
Abstract
We consider the question of counting the degrees of freedom in theoretical models, with an emphasis on theories of fields and gravity. Among the possible approaches, the Hamiltonian formulation remains one of the most systematic and robust tools. However, it can easily become long and technically involved. In this work, we present a broadly applicable recipe to find the degrees of freedom directly, based on the Lagrangian formulation. We compare it to the standard approaches, highlight the challenges that may arise in the latter, and demonstrate that the proposed method leads to transparent insights about the dynamical nature of theory in a quick, simple, and straight-forward way.
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"date_created": "2026-02-17T05:53:24.118000Z",
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"abstract": "We consider the question of counting the degrees of freedom in theoretical models, with an emphasis on theories of fields and gravity. Among the possible approaches, the Hamiltonian formulation remains one of the most systematic and robust tools. However, it can easily become long and technically involved. In this work, we present a broadly applicable recipe to find the degrees of freedom directly, based on the Lagrangian formulation. We compare it to the standard approaches, highlight the challenges that may arise in the latter, and demonstrate that the proposed method leads to transparent insights about the dynamical nature of theory in a quick, simple, and straight-forward way.",
"arxiv_id": "2601.10288",
"authors": [
"Anamaria Hell",
"Elisa G. M. Ferreira",
"Dieter Lust",
"Misao Sasaki"
],
"categories": [
"hep-th",
"astro-ph.CO",
"gr-qc"
],
"license": "http://arxiv.org/licenses/nonexclusive-distrib/1.0/",
"title": "The recipe for the degrees of freedom",
"url": "https://arxiv.org/abs/2601.10288",
"version": "v1"
},
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"type": "Model",
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