Divergent series, summability and resurgence. III. Resurgent methods and the first Painlevé equation (Q276343)

This is the third of the three volumes that arose out of lecture notes for courses at a school in Lima, Peru in 2008 and that deals with the summability and resurgence theory for divergent power series in one complex variable. In particular, as an application of the resurgence theory to nonlinear ordinary differential equations, the resurgence structure (i.e., the structure as resurgent functions) of the formal series solution of the first Painlevé equation is discussed in details in this volume. After briefly explaining the background of the first Painlevé equation in Chapters 1 and 2, the author investigates the structure of its formal solution from the viewpoint of Ecalle's resurgent functions theory in Chapters 3, 5, 6 and 8. To be more specific, in Chapter 3 the tritruncated solution, that is, the formal series solution of the first Painlevé equation is introduced and its Borel-Laplace summability is discussed. Then in Chapter 5 formal transseries solutions of the first Painlevé equation are constructed by using the formal integral. Their Borel-Laplace summability is considered in Chapter 6. Finally, in Chapter 8 the resurgence properties (such as the alien derivatives and the bridge equations) of the tritruncated solution of the first Painlevé equation are explicitly shown in terms of transseries solutions. The remaining Chapters 4 and 7 are devoted to the explanation of some basic ingredients of the resurgence theory that are necessary for the study of the first Painlevé equation developed in this volume. The first Painlevé equation is an important equation and the resurgent analysis of it developed in this volume is very intriguing. For example, as is briefly discussed in Chapter 8, the resurgence structure has an implication in nonlinear Stokes phenomena. Still, the study of this volume remains completely in the framework of the resurgence theory. It is desirable that the relationship between the resurgence structure of the tritruncated solution and the classical asymptotic study of the first Painlevé equation should be more clarified.