Invariant modules and the reduction of nonlinear partial differential equations to dynamical systems (Q5927526)

A general theory of invariant subspaces is developed. The main goal of the paper is to prove a structure theorem for those differential operators, both linear and nonlinear, which leave a given finite-dimensional vector space of analytic functions invariant. Existence of an invariant subspace enables to reduce the associated dynamical partial differential equations to a system of ordinary differential equations. It is well known that the most basic necessary and sufficient condition for the linear independence of solutions to a homogeneous linear scalar ordinary differential equation is the nonvanishing of their Wronskian determinant. The authors have proposed a significant multi-dimensional generalization of this classical Wronskian lemma. New approaches of characterization of nonlinear annihilating and affine annihilating operators are proposed. The technique proposed is applied to the nonlinear evolution equation.