Second-degree Painlevé equations and their contiguity relations

Abstract

We study second-order, second-degree systems related to the Painleve equations which possess one and two parameters. In every case we show that by introducing a quantity related to the canonical Hamiltonian variables it is possible to derive such a second-degree equation. We investigate also the contiguity relations of the solutions of these higher-degree equations. In most cases these relations have the form of correspondences, which would make them non-integrable in general. However, as we show, in our case these contiguity relations are indeed integrable mappings, with a single ambiguity in their evolution (due to the sign of a square root).