Canonical lifts in multisymplectic De Donder-Weyl Hamiltonian field theories

Abstract We define canonical lifts of vector fields to the multisymplectic multimomentum bundles of De Donder–Weyl Hamiltonian (first-order) field theories and to the appropriate premultisymplectic embedded constraint submanifolds on which singular field theories are studied. These new canonical lifts are used to study the so-called natural Noether symmetries present in both regular and singular Hamiltonian field theories along with their associated conserved quantities obtained from Noether’s theorem. The Klein–Gordon field , the Polyakov bosonic string , and Einstein–Cartan gravity in 3+1 dimensions are analyzed in depth as applications of these concepts; as a peripheral result obtained in the analysis of the bosonic string, we provide a new geometrical interpretation of the well-known Virasoro constraint .