2.4. COMPATIBILITY FOR SYSTEMS OF PDES 41
which has the solution
Q D G.p; q/ C H.u/ (2.238)
for arbitrary functions G and H . From (2.227), we find that G satisfies G
pp
C G
qq
D 0; from
(2.223d), that H satisfies H
00
D 0 giving that H D cu where c is an arbitrary constant, noting
that we have suppressed the second constant of integration due to translational freedom. is
leads to our main result. Equations of the form
u
t
D u
xx
C u
yy
C cu C G
u
x
; u
y
are compatible with the first-order equations
u
t
D cu C G
u
x
; u
y
;
where c is an arbitrary constant and G.p; q/, a function satisfying G
pp
C G
qq
D 0.
2.4 COMPATIBILITY FOR SYSTEMS OF PDES
We now extend the idea of compatibility to systems of PDEs. In this section we consider the
Cubic Schrödinger equation
i
t
C
xx
C kj j
2
D 0: (2.239)
If we assume that D u C iv then (2.239) becomes
v
t
C u
xx
C ku.u
2
C v
2
/ D 0;
u
t
C v
xx
C kv.u
2
C v
2
/ D 0:
(2.240)
Here, we seek compatibility with the pair of first-order PDEs
u
t
C A.t; x; u; v/u
x
C B.t; x; u; v/v
x
D U.t; x; u; v/;
u
t
C C.t; x; u; v/u
x
C D.t; x; u; v/v
x
D V .t; x; u; v/;
(2.241)
for some functions A; B; C; D; U and V to be determined. We solve (2.240) and (2.241) for
u
t
; v
t
; u
xx
and v
xx
and require compatibility, that is
.u
t
/
xx
D .u
xx
/
t
and .v
t
/
xx
D .v
xx
/
t
: (2.242)
Isolating the coefficients of u
x
and v
x
gives rise to two sets of determining equations for the
unknowns A; B; C; D; U and V . Each set contains ten determining equations. We only list six
of each ten as they are the only ones needed in our preliminary analysis. Also, they are the smaller