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2

If physics isn't an issue, you can add arbitrarily many terms. Once the physics comes in though, you will encounter a few restrictions : As said by Gennaro, it is assumed that the Poincaré symmetry applies. Higher derivative terms (second derivatives and above) are generally bad news. They can cause vacuum instability (energies can be arbitrarily ...

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In physics there is no general criterion on how to write down suitable Lagrangians, rather than a posteriori check on the equations of motions: all the Lagrangians generating the same dynamics are equally correct. For example, as an exercise, you may try to write down all the possible Lagrangians giving you back $F_j = m \ddot{x}_j$. This said, to directly ...

0

The force is just the gradient of the potential energy. So it's not true that the energy is just force multiplied by $r$. It is the integral of the force w.r.t. $r$, which gives you the $1/r$ dependence. Edit: here "potential energy" and "interaction energy" are used interchangeably.

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