Equivalence transformations and symmetries for a heat conduction model (Q1390089)

The authors consider one dimensional heat flow in a rigid body in the framework of Extended Thermodynamics, which means, roughly, the Fourier law of heat conduction is replaced by Cattaneo's extension thereof. They obtain a highly nonlinear model of partial differential equations, which under certain conditions is hyperbolic. An invariant classification via equivalence transformations is sought. Special classes of exact solutions are obtained and discussed. Fourier's theory is shown to be the limiting case of the theory under consideration when a certain parameter is allowed to tend to zero. Both the model and the analysis are complicated.