General conditions for the existence of non-standard Lagrangians for dissipative dynamical systems

Equations of motion describing dissipative dynamical systems with coefficients varying either in time or in space are considered. To identify the equations that admit a Lagrangian description, two classes of non-standard Lagrangians are introduced and general conditions required for the existence of these Lagrangians are determined. The conditions are used to obtain some non-standard Lagrangians and derive equations of motion resulting from these Lagrangians. (C) 2009 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.