Singular Lagrangians with higher derivatives

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Abstract
The Hamiltonian formalism for systems with singular Lagrangians of the second order is constructed. A new method is proposed for obtaining the equations of motion in the phase space for theories with singular Lagrangians and the connection of the Lagrangian and Hamiltonian descriptions is traced in detail. As an example, a generalisation of the relativistic point action is considered. It involves both the length and curvature of the point trajectory in spacetime.