# Lowest degree invariant 2nd order PDEs over rational homogeneous contact manifolds

created by moreno on 03 Oct 2017
modified on 15 Sep 2020

[BibTeX]

Published Paper

Inserted: 3 oct 2017
Last Updated: 15 sep 2020

Journal: Communications in Contemporary Mathematics
Year: 2019

ArXiv: 1606.02633 PDF
For each simple Lie algebra $\mathfrak{g}$ (excluding, for trivial reasons, type ${\sf C}$) we find the lowest possible degree of an invariant second-order PDE over the adjoint variety in $\mathbb{P}\mathfrak{g}$, a homogeneous contact manifold. Here a PDE $F(x^i,u,u_i,u_{ij})=0$ has degree $\le d$ if $F$ is a polynomial of degree $\le d$ in the minors of $(u_{ij})$, with coefficients functions of the contact coordinates $x^i$, $u$, $u_i$ (e.g., Monge-Amp\`ere equations have degree 1). For $\mathfrak{g}$ of type ${\sf A}$ or ${\sf G}$ we show that this gives all invariant second-order PDEs. For $\mathfrak{g}$ of type ${\sf B}$ and ${\sf D}$ we provide an explicit formula for the lowest-degree invariant second-order PDEs. For $\mathfrak{g}$ of type ${\sf E}$ and ${\sf F}$ we prove uniqueness of the lowest-degree invariant second-order PDE; we also conjecture that uniqueness holds in type ${\sf D}$.