A class of quasilinear second order partial differential equations which describe spherical or pseudospherical surfaces (Q2304459)

In this paper, the authors classify second-order equations (of parabolic, hyperbolic or elliptic type) : \[z_{tt}=A(z,z_x,z_t)z_{xx}+B(z,z_x,z_t)z_{xt}+C(z,z_x,z_t),\] describing pseudospherical surfaces (\(\delta=1\)) or spherical surfaces \(\delta=-1\) with associated \(1\)-forms \(\omega_i=f_{i1}dx+f_{i2}dt\), \(1\leq i\leq3\), such that \(f_{ij}\) are real differentiable functions of \(z_t,z,z_x,z_{xx},...,\partial_x^kz\), satisfying \(f_{21,z_t}=f_{31,z_t}=0\). The results of this classification are given in this paper, which provides an explicit description of such differential equations. In particular, the authors point out special classes of equations, which provide most of the given explicit examples. These equations are equivalent to the structure equations of a metric with Gaussian curvature \(K=-\delta\), with \(\delta=1\) or \(\delta=-1\), respectively, and they can be seen as the compatibility condition of an associated \(\mathrm{su}(2)\)-valued or \(\mathrm{sl}(2,\mathbb{R})\)-valued linear problem, also referred to as a zero curvature representation. Under certain assumptions the authors give a complete and explicit classification of equations of the form above describing pseudospherical surfaces or spherical surfaces, in terms of some arbitrary differentiable functions. Several examples of such equations are provided by choosing the arbitrary functions. In particular, well known equations which describe pseudospherical surfaces, such as the short-pulse and the constant astigmatism equations, as well as their generalizations and their spherical analogues are included in the paper. The paper is organized as follows. Section 1 is an introduction to the subject. In Section 2, the authors recall some preliminaries on differential equations that describe pseudospherical or spherical surfaces. Moreover, given such an equation with associated \(1\)-forms \(\omega_i\), they provide linear systems of PDEs whose integrability condition is the differential equation. Section 3 deals with some explicit examples which include generalizations of the constant astigmatism equation and of the short-pulse equation and then the authors state their main results. The proof of these results is given in the Section 4 and in Section 5 the authors provide additional examples which follow from the main results obtained in this paper.