Symmetry transformations of extremals and higher conserved quantities: Invariant Yang–Mills connections

We characterize symmetry transformations of Lagrangian extremals generating `on shell' conservation laws. We relate symmetry transformations of extremals to Jacobi fields and study symmetries of higher variations by proving that a pair given by a symmetry of the $l$-th variation of a Lagrangian and by a Jacobi field of the $s$-th variation of the same Lagrangian (with $s