Nets of lines depending on a parameter and sufficient conditions for their convergence (Q1180288)

The first section of this article is a survey. We discuss criteria for the global regularity of a net of lines defined on the plane or a part of it by an ordinary differential equation of first order and second degree. Such a method of defining nets is quite useful, but is actually a local method, so that a special investigation is needed in order to use the net (for example, as a system of coordinates) in a prescribed region. The next portion of the article concerns nets depending on a parameter and their convergence with respect to the parameter. In these questions an analytic technique connected with the use of a hyperbolic system of equations of a special form has turned out to be quite useful. However the results related to this topic have been published only in the form of brief communications; they are discussed here in more detail with proofs. The final sections of the article are devoted to applications to the theory of nonlinear hyperbolic partial differential equations and to the study of surfaces of negative Gaussian curvature.