Airy solutions of Painlevé's second equation (Q1884421)

The author shows that any transcendental solution of the second Painlevé equation (\(P_{I\!I}\)) of a certain form is an Airy solution, that is, it belongs to the class of solutions obtained by repeated application of the Bäcklund transformation of \(P_{I\!I}\) to a solution of the Riccati equation \({dw\over dz}=\pm w^2\pm {z\over 2}\) (which can be mapped into the Airy equation \({d^2 y\over dx^2}=xy\)). The Airy solutions are of course solutions of the so-called special integrals of \(P_{I\!I}\).