Integrability and solvability of polynomial Liénard differential systems

Abstract

AbstractWe provide the necessary and sufficient conditions of Liouvillian integrability for Liénard differential systems describing nonlinear oscillators with a polynomial damping and a polynomial restoring force. We prove that Liénard differential systems are not Darboux integrable excluding subfamilies with certain restrictions on the degrees of the polynomials arising in the systems. We demonstrate that if the degree of a polynomial responsible for the restoring force is greater than the degree of a polynomial producing the damping, then a generic Liénard differential system is not Liouvillian integrable with the exception of linear Liénard systems. However, for any fixed degrees of the polynomials describing the damping and the restoring force we present subfamilies possessing Liouvillian first integrals. As a by‐product of our results, we find a number of novel Liouvillian integrable subfamilies. In addition, we study the existence of nonautonomous Darboux first integrals and nonautonomous Jacobi last multipliers with a time‐dependent exponential factor.