We study the possible existence of first integrals of the form I ( x , y ) = ( y - g 1 ( x ) ) α 1 ( y - g 2 ( x ) ) α 2 ⋯ ( y - g ℓ ( x ) ) α ℓ h ( x ) , where g 1 ( x ) , … , g ℓ ( x ) are unknown particular solutions of d y / d x = Q ( x , y ) / P ( x , y ) , α i are unknown constants and h ( x ) is an unknown function. For certain systems, some of the particular solutions remain arbitrary and the other ones are explicitly determined or are functionally related to the arbitrary particular solutions. We obtain in this way a nonlinear superposition principle that generalize the classical nonlinear superposition principle of the Lie theory. In general, the first integral contains some arbitrary solutions of the system but also quadratures of these solutions and an explicit dependence on the independent variable, see García et al. (J. Lie theory, to appear).
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