Criteria for fourth-order ordinary differential equations to be linearizable by contact transformations

Abstract

Solution of linearization problem of fourth-order ordinary differential equations via contact transformations is presented in the paper. We show that all fourth-order ordinary differential equations that are linearizable by contact transformations are contained in the class of equations which is at most quadratic in the third-order derivative. We provide the linearization test and describe the procedure for obtaining the linearizing transformations as well as the linearized equation. Moreover, we obtain the general form of ordinary differential equations of order greater than four linearizable via contact transformations.