Tangential characteristic symmetries and first order hyperbolic systems (Q5941632)

The systems studied here comprise two equations for two functions of two variables. Such a system is assumed to define a smooth submanifold \({\mathcal R}^6 \subset J^1({\mathbb R}^2,{\mathbb R}^2)\), equipped with a smooth codimension-two distribution \(\Sigma\) to which the 1-graph of any solution is tangent; hyperbolicity gives a canonical splitting \(\Sigma=\Sigma_+ \oplus \Sigma_-\). This is Darboux-integrable if each 2-plane distribution \(\Sigma_\pm\) has two functionally independent first integrals, known as Riemann invariants. For such systems, tangential characteristic symmetries are defined as vector fields tangent to the joint level sets of the Riemann invariants and which stabilise \(\Sigma_+\) or \(\Sigma_-\). In earlier work, the author showed that such vector fields always exist, and \(\mathcal R\) is locally diffeomorphic to \({\mathbb R}^4 \times G\) with the characteristic symmetries carried to respectively the left- and right-invariant vector fields on the two-dimensional Lie group \(G\). This result, which the author has generalized to the case where \({\mathcal R}\) has arbitrary dimension [Trans. Am. Math. Soc. 353, 1705-1739 (2001; Zbl 0984.58003)], gives the Vessiot normal form for Darboux-integrable systems. Following an exposition of the this material, this well-written paper includes detailed examples working out the normal form, a representation of regular integral surfaces of \(\Sigma\) in terms of the normal form, and a classification theorem which asserts that \(\Sigma\) is contact-equivalent to the Born-Infeld system \(u_y=vu_x, v_y=uv_x\) when \(G\) is abelian, or the Liouville system \(u_y=e^v, v_x=e^u\) when \(G\) is non-abelian.