On C-class equations

Fuente: arXiv
Saved in:
Bibliographic Details
Main Authors: Cap, Andreas, Doubrov, Boris, The, Dennis
Format: Preprint
Published: 2017
Subjects:
Online Access:
Tags: Add Tag
No Tags, Be the first to tag this record!
_version_ 1866929536171507712
author Cap, Andreas
Doubrov, Boris
The, Dennis
author_facet Cap, Andreas
Doubrov, Boris
The, Dennis
contents The concept of a C-class of differential equations goes back to E. Cartan with the upshot that generic equations in a C-class can be solved without integration. While Cartan's definition was in terms of differential invariants being first integrals, all results exhibiting C-classes that we are aware of are based on the fact that a canonical Cartan geometry associated to the equations in the class descends to the space of solutions. For sufficiently low orders, these geometries belong to the class of parabolic geometries and the results follow from the general characterization of geometries descending to a twistor space. In this article we answer the question of whether a canonical Cartan geometry descends to the space of solutions in the case of scalar ODEs of order at least four and of systems of ODEs of order at least three. As in the lower order cases, this is characterized by the vanishing of the generalized Wilczynski invariants, which are defined via the linearization at a solution. The canonical Cartan geometries (which are not parabolic geometries) are a slight variation of those available in the literature based on a recent general construction. All the verifications needed to apply this construction for the classes of ODEs we study are carried out in the article, which thus also provides a complete alternative proof for the existence of canonical Cartan connections associated to higher order (systems of) ODEs.
format Preprint
id arxiv_https___arxiv_org_abs_1709_01130
institution arXiv
publishDate 2017
record_format arxiv
spellingShingle On C-class equations
Cap, Andreas
Doubrov, Boris
The, Dennis
Differential Geometry
53C10, 53C15, 53B15, 34C14 (Primary), 34A34, 53A40, 53A55 (Secondary)
The concept of a C-class of differential equations goes back to E. Cartan with the upshot that generic equations in a C-class can be solved without integration. While Cartan's definition was in terms of differential invariants being first integrals, all results exhibiting C-classes that we are aware of are based on the fact that a canonical Cartan geometry associated to the equations in the class descends to the space of solutions. For sufficiently low orders, these geometries belong to the class of parabolic geometries and the results follow from the general characterization of geometries descending to a twistor space. In this article we answer the question of whether a canonical Cartan geometry descends to the space of solutions in the case of scalar ODEs of order at least four and of systems of ODEs of order at least three. As in the lower order cases, this is characterized by the vanishing of the generalized Wilczynski invariants, which are defined via the linearization at a solution. The canonical Cartan geometries (which are not parabolic geometries) are a slight variation of those available in the literature based on a recent general construction. All the verifications needed to apply this construction for the classes of ODEs we study are carried out in the article, which thus also provides a complete alternative proof for the existence of canonical Cartan connections associated to higher order (systems of) ODEs.
title On C-class equations
topic Differential Geometry
53C10, 53C15, 53B15, 34C14 (Primary), 34A34, 53A40, 53A55 (Secondary)
url https://arxiv.org/abs/1709.01130