Weak calculus of variations for functionals of laws of semi-martingales

Abstract: We develop a non-anticipating calculus of variations for functionals on a space of laws of continuous semi-martingales, which extends the classical one. We extend Hamilton's least action principle and Noether's theorem to this generalized stochastic framework. As an application we obtain, under mild conditions, a stochastic Euler-Lagrange condition and invariants for the critical points of recent problems in stochastic control, namely for the semi-martingale optimal transportation problems.