Isomonodromic confluence of singular points (Q1957051)

It is known that any system of linear differential equations on the Riemann sphere with (non-Fuchsian) regular singular points is a result of the so-called normalized isomonodromic confluence of Fuchsian singular points of a family of Fuchsian systems. Here, the author proves that any system of linear ODEs on the sphere can be interpreted as the result of the isomonodromic confluence of singular points in the family such that the Poincaré ranks of all its singularities are minimal. The proof is based on the use of a remarkable gauge transformation which, in a neighborhood of an irregular singularity with a non-minimal Poincaré rank, turns the original system into an isomonodromic family with spurious (apparent) Fuchsian singularities and an irregular singular point of minimal Poincaré rank. The author shows that the original system emerges while all the spurious Fuchsian singularities tend to the irregular singularity, each in its own sector.