Discrete Hamiltonians of discrete Painlevé equations (Q2664031)

The authors express discrete Painlevé equations as discrete Hamiltonian systems (here ``discrete Hamiltonian systems'' means canonical transformations defined by generating functions). Expressing an equation as a Hamiltonian system has many advantages. From the one hand, the Hamiltonian function automatically becomes a conserved quantity if it is autonomous. In the case of the Painlevé equations, however, this does not hold since the systems are nonautonomous. Another important advantage is that using a Hamiltonian system allows one to write equations concisely. For example, this can be of help when one considers the problem of identifying equations. Since the time evolution is determined by a single function, one can compare the Hamiltonian functions instead of the time evolution equations themselves. The construction presented here relies on the classification of the discrete Painlevé equations based on the surface-type. The obtained discrete Hamiltonians are written in terms of logarithm and dilogarithm functions.