Complete Group Classification of Systems of Two Nonlinear Second-Order Ordinary Differential Equations of the Form ${\bf y}^{\prime\prime}={\bf F}({\bf y})$

Abstract

Extensive work has been done on the group classification of systems of equations in the literature. This paper identifies the gap in the literature which concerns the group classification of systems of two autonomous nonlinear second-order ordinary differential equations. We provide a complete group classification using two approaches which form the essence of this paper and argue that this can be applied to systems of autonomous nonlinear second-order ordinary differential equations which occur in many physical applications.