On Lie's classification of subalgebras of vector fields on the plane (Q2106898)

Motivated by [\textit{S. W. Shah} et al., ``Complete classification of scalar fourth-order ordinary differential equations and linearizing algorithms'', Dyn. Syst. Appl. 30, No. 3, 519--535 (2021)], where Lie's classification of solvable Lie algebras is used to completely classify equations of fourth order according to their symmetry algebras, this paper gives another proof of the classification of all solvable Lie algebras of vector fields in the plane \(\mathbb{C}^2\) or \(\mathbb{R}^2\), using representation theory and elementary partial differential equations. After some preliminaries in section 3, section 4 classifies nilpotent non-abelian algebras up to locally defined change of variables (c.f. Theorem 4) and sections 5-6 deal with solvable non-nilpotent algebras (c.f. Propositions 5 and 7, Theorem 8 and Corollary 10), distinguishing the rank of the commutator and whether this commutator is or not abelian.