by W-H Steeb (Rand Afrikaans University, South Africa)

This book is a comprehensive introduction to the application of continuous symmetries and their Lie algebras to ordinary and partial differential equations. It is suitable for students and research workers whose main interest lies in finding solutions to differential equations. It therefore caters for readers primarily interested in applied mathematics and physics rather than pure mathematics.

The book provides an application-orientated text that is reasonably self-contained. A large number of worked examples have been included to help readers working independently of a teacher. The advance of algebraic computation has made it possible to write programs for the tedious calculations in this research field, and thus the book also makes a survey of computer algebra packages.

• Groups
• Lie Groups and Lie Transformation Groups
• Infinitesimal Transformations
• Lie Algebras
• Introductory Examples
• Differential Forms and Tensor Fields
• Lie Derivative and Invariance
• Invariance of Differential Equations
• Lie–Bäcklund Vector Fields
• Differential Equation for a Given Lie Algebra
• A List of Lie Symmetry Vector Fields
• Recursion Operators
• Bäcklund Transformations
• Lax Representations
• Conservation Laws
• Symmetries and Painlevé Test
• Lie Algebra Valued Differential Forms
• Bose Operators and Lie Algebras
• Computer Algebra