Retracing the Painlevé-Gambier classification for discrete systems (Q1381217)

The Painlevé analysis is a well-known tool for testing integrability of the second-order nonlinear (and, generally, nonautonomous) ordinary differential equations (ODEs). In this work, the authors give a review of results extending the Painlevé test (PT) to discrete systems in the form of three-point rational maps (generally, also nonautonomous) of the form \(x_{n+2} = R(x_{n+1},x_n,n)\), where \(R\) is a rational function of its arguments. This is a discrete analog of the general second-order ODE to which the classical PT applies. As well as in the case of ODEs, the crucial role in the analysis belongs to consideration of singularities, with the underlying idea that in the integrable case a singularity, if any, will not persist, but will disappear after a few iterations of the map. As a result, three classes of integrable three-point maps can be found, in perfect correspondence with the three known classes of the Painlevé-integrable ODEs: (i) ODEs solvable in elliptic functions; (ii) linearizable ones, and (iii) the most nontrivial ODEs solvable in terms of Painlevé transcendental functions. Each integrable map reduces, in its continuum limit, to an integrable ODE belonging to one of these classes.