The irreducibility of the second Painlevé equation and the isomonodromy method (Q2744097)

This paper studies the irreducibility and the classical solutions of the second Painlevé equation NEWLINE\[NEWLINEy_{xx}= 2y^3+ xy- \alpha\tag{1}NEWLINE\]NEWLINE by means of the analytic theory based on the isomonodromy deformation method. The equation (1) can be represented in the form of a compatibility condition for certain overdetermined linear systems NEWLINE\[NEWLINE\partial\Psi/\partial\lambda= A\Psi\quad\text{and}\quad \partial\Psi/\partial x= U\Psi,\tag{2}NEWLINE\]NEWLINE where \(A\), \(U\) are \(2\times 2\)-matrices whose entries are certain rational functions of \(\lambda\), \(x\), \(y\) and \(z(= y_x)\). Notice that the system (2) has an irregular singular point at \(\lambda=\infty\) of Poincaré rank 3 and a regular singular point at \(\lambda= 0\) (if \(\alpha\neq 0\)).NEWLINENEWLINE First, the authors present in detail a parametrization of the set of all solutions of (1) via monodromy data of (2). Let \(s_k\), \(k\in\mathbb{Z}\), be the Stokes multipliers, then the parametrization space is the 2-dimensional monodromy manifold \(\mathbb{M}\) given by \(\mathbb{M}= \{(s_1, s_2, s_3)\in\mathbb{C}^3: s_1- s_2+ s_3+ s_1s_2s_3= -2\sin\pi\alpha\}\) if \(\alpha- 1/2 \notin\mathbb{Z}\), while if \(\alpha- 1/2= n\in\mathbb{Z}\) the singular point \(s_1= -s_2= s_3= (-1)^{n+1}\) of \(\mathbb{M}\) is replaced by the projective line \(\mathbb{C} P^1\). The Stokes multipliers \(s_k= s_k(x,y,z,\alpha)\) have some symmetries such as \(s_k(x, -y,-z,-\alpha)= -s_k(x,y,z,\alpha)\) and \(\overline s_{4-k}(\overline x,\overline y,\overline z,\overline\alpha)= s_k(x,y,z,\alpha)\), which imply the symmetries of the solutions \(y(x| s,\alpha)\) of (1) parametrized by the monodromy data \(s= (s_1,s_2,s_3)\).NEWLINENEWLINE Second, it is noticed that the Bäcklund transformation which changes the constant \(\alpha\) in (1) to \(-\alpha\pm 1\) is easily derived from a simple gauge transformation for (2).NEWLINENEWLINE Finally, the irreducibility of (1) is discussed, namely, results on the global asymptotics and truncated solutions are given. In generic, the solution \(y(x| s,\alpha)\) has an asymptotic expression as \(x\to\infty\) in a neighborhood of a given line by means of elliptic sine. The phase shift for each sector is explicitly given. Completely truncated cases are classified inNEWLINENEWLINE (i) \(s_1= s_2= s_3= 0\), \(\alpha= n\in\mathbb{Z}\) andNEWLINENEWLINE (ii) \(s_1= -s_2= s_3= (-1)^{n+1}\), \(\alpha- 1/2= n\in\mathbb{Z}\).NEWLINENEWLINE In case (i), equation (1) has a unique rational solution. In case (ii), (1) has a 1-parameter family of classical solutions which are rationally expressible in terms of Airy functions and their derivatives, where the family is parametrized by \(\mathbb{C} P^1\) in the monodromy manifold \(\mathbb{M}\).NEWLINENEWLINEFor the entire collection see [Zbl 0969.00055].