## 2022-03-05

### How to Tell Whether a Functional is Extremized

I happened to be thinking recently about how to tell when a functional is extremized. Examples in physics include minimizing the ground state energy of an electronic system expressed as an approximate density functional $$E[\rho]$$ with respect to the electron density $$\rho$$ or maximizing the relativistic proper time $$\tau$$ of a classical particle with respect to a path through spacetime. Additionally, finding the points of stationary action that lead to the Euler-Lagrange equations of motion is often called "minimization of the action", but I can't recall ever having seen a proof that the action is truly minimized (as opposed to reaching a saddle point). This got me to think more about the conditions under which a functional is truly maximized or minimized as opposed to reaching a saddle point. Follow the jump to see more. I will frequently refer to concepts presented in a recent post (link here), including the relationships between functionals of vectors & functionals of functions. Additionally, for simplicity, all variables and functions will be real-valued.