Solving Second-Order Differential Equations by Decomposition

The subject of this article are linear and quasilinear differential equations of second order that may be decomposed into a first-order component with guaranteed solution procedure for obtaining closed-form solutions. These are homogeneous or inhomogeneous linear components, special Riccati components, Bernoulli, Clairaut or d’Alembert components. Procedures are described how they may be determined and how solutions of the originally given second order equation may be obtained from them. This makes it possible to solve new classes of differential equations and opens up a new area of research. Applying decomposition to linear inhomogeneous equations a simple procedure for determining a special solution follows. It is not based on the method of variation of constants of Lagrange, and consequently does not require the knowledge of a fundamental system. Algorithms based on these results are implemented in the computer algebra system ALLTYPES which is available on the website www.alltypes.de.