An analogue of the Moutard transformation for the Goursat equation \(\vartheta_{xy}=2\sqrt{\lambda(x,y)\vartheta_x\vartheta_y}\) (Q1586693)

The author studies the following equation, introduced by Goursat, \(\vartheta_{xy}= 2\sqrt{\lambda(x,y) \vartheta_x\vartheta_y}\). It can be linearized using the differential substitution \(z= \sqrt{\vartheta_x}\), \(w= \sqrt{\vartheta_y}\): \(z_y= \sqrt{\lambda}w\), \(w_x= \sqrt{\lambda}z\), and after eliminating \(w\), becomes \(z_{xy}= {1\over 2}(\log\lambda)_x z_y+\lambda z\). Some properties of this equation make it similar to the Moutard equation \(u_{xy}= M(x,y)u\) [J. École Polytech. 45, 1-11 (1878)]. But this Goursat transformation does not provide proper superposition formulas. The author presents a new Bäcklund-type transformation and gives the necessary extended superposition formulas.