Hierarchy of Bäcklund transformation groups of the Painlevé systems (Q1768163)

The Painlevé system \(P_J\) \((J=I, II,\dots VI)\) is a Hamiltonian system equivalent to the \(J\)th Painlevé equation. For \(J\not= I,\) the Hamiltonian \(H_J\) of \(P_J\) contains parameters \(\alpha_0, \dots\); and the Bäcklund transformation group \(W_J\) of \(P_J\) consists of birational symplectic transformations changing \(\alpha=(\alpha_0,\dots)\) as elements of an affine Weyl group. Between \(P_J\) and \(P_K\) \(((J,K)=(VI,V), (V,IV),(V,III), (IV,II), (III,II),(II,I)),\) there is a degeneration relation; namely \(P_J\) is written in an equivalent system \(P_{J\to K}\) containing \(\varepsilon\) such that \(P_{J\to K}\) approaches \(P_K\) as \(\varepsilon\to 0.\) This paper studies how this degeneration process works on the Bäcklund transformation group \(W_J.\) It is shown that, for every degeneration process \(P_J\to P_K\) \(((J,K)\not=(II,I))\), there is a subgroup \(W_{J\to K}\) of \(W_J\) such that \(W_{J\to K}\) converges to \(W_K\) as \(\varepsilon \to 0.\)