Applications of Differential Form Wu’s Method to Determine Symmetries of (Partial) Differential Equations

Abstract

In this paper, we present an application of Wu’s method (differential characteristic set (dchar-set) algorithm) for computing the symmetry of (partial) differential equations (PDEs) that provides a direct and systematic procedure to obtain the classical and nonclassical symmetry of the differential equations. The fundamental theory and subalgorithms used in the proposed algorithm consist of a different version of the Lie criterion for the classical symmetry of PDEs and the zero decomposition algorithm of a differential polynomial (d-pol) system (DPS). The version of the Lie criterion yields determining equations (DTEs) of symmetries of differential equations, even those including a nonsolvable equation. The decomposition algorithm is used to solve the DTEs by decomposing the zero set of the DPS associated with the DTEs into a union of a series of zero sets of dchar-sets of the system, which leads to simplification of the computations.