On the Duffin-Kemmer-Petiau Formulation of the Covariant Hamiltonian Dynamics in Field Theory

We show that the De Donder-Weyl (DW) covariant Hamiltonian field equations of any field can be written in Duffin-Kemmer-Petiau (DKP) matrix form. As a consequence, the (modified) DKP beta-matrices (5 X 5 in four space-time dimensions) are of universal significance for all fields admitting the DW Hamiltonian formulation, not only for a scalar field, and can be viewed as field theoretic analogues of the symplectic matrix, leading to the so-called ``k-symplectic'' (k=4) structure. We also briefly discuss what could be viewed as the covariant Poisson bracket given by beta-matrices and the corresponding Poisson bracket formulation of DW Hamiltonian field equations.