Analytical solutions of the Lorenz system (Q2516361)

The paper deals with the well-known Lorenz system of three ordinary differential equations \[ x_t=\sigma y-\sigma x,\quad y_t=rx-y-zx,\quad z_t=xy-bz,\eqno(1) \] where \(\sigma\), \(r\), \(b\) are parameters. If \(\sigma=0\), the system can be reduced to a second-order linear differential equation. The author focuses on the nontrivial case \(\sigma\neq 0\), when the system is equivalent to a third-order nonlinear differential equation. The first part of the article summarizes some results which are already available in the literature; see e.g. the paper of \textit{M. Tabor} and \textit{J.Weiss} [``Analytic structure of the Lorenz system'', Phys. Rev. A 24, No. 4, 2157--2167 (1981; \url{doi:10.1103/PhysRevA.24.2157})]. In particular, the Painlevé test is used to find values of the parameters \(\sigma\), \(r\), \(b\) for which the Lorenz system is integrable. In these cases, the general solution can be expressed either in terms of elliptic functions or using the Painlevé transcendents. The author also discusses the cases when the Painlevé condition fails to be satisfied, but the system possesses a first integral. The main result of the paper is the classification of elliptic solutions to (1) having the form \[ x(t)=H+{A+B\wp_t(t,g_2,g_3)\over C+\wp(t,g_2,g_3)}\eqno(2) \] (where \(\wp\) is the Weierstrass function) in the cases \(b=2\sigma\) and \(b=1-3\sigma\). The solutions are found by expanding the right-hand side of (2) into a Laurent series and substituting it into the third-order equation corresponding to the Lorenz system. The author notes that in most cases, solutions of the form (2) obtained using this method actually degenerate into hyperbolic and trigonometric functions.