Solutions to nonlinear partial differential equations from symmetry-enhancing and symmetry-preserving constraints (Q1125297)

The authors discuss some special cases of the method of differential constraints for constructing explicit solutions of differential equations. In this method one adds additional differential equations to a given system in the hope to find a larger group of Lie point symmetries. In this paper the constraints are mainly chosen such that a given differential equation is split into two equations. Not much theory is given; instead the authors present several examples in detail. This includes the boundary layer equation and the Navier-Stokes equations. For the latter ones it is shown that irrotational flows can be mapped via a generalised Cole-Hopf transformation on solutions of a linear Schrödinger equation. Reviewer's remark: The authors stress at several places that the solutions they construct for their examples cannot be obtained with the non-classical method. This is only correct, if one understands the non-classical method rather narrowly. \textit{E. Pucci} and \textit{G. Saccomandi} [J. Math. Anal. Appl. 163, No. 2, 588-598 (1992; Zbl 0755.35003)] and independently the reviewer [Math. Comput. Modelling 25, No. 8-9, 63-73 (1997; Zbl 0906.34006)] pointed out that in principle any solution can be constructed via non-classical reductions. The problem is only that in practice one is usually not able to obtain the corresponding symmetry generators.