Quadratic Bureau-Guillot systems with the first and second Painlev\'e transcendents in the coefficients. Part I: geometric approach and birational equivalence

Abstract

Bureau proposed a classification of systems of quadratic differential equations in two variables which are free of movable critical points, which was recently revised by Guillot. We revisit the quadratic Bureau-Guillot systems with the first and second Painlev\'e transcendent in the coefficients. We explain their birational equivalence by using the geometric approach of Okamoto's spaces of initial conditions and the method of iterative polynomial regularisation, solving the Painlev\'e equivalence problem for the Bureau-Guillot systems with non-rational meromorphic coefficients. We also find that one of the systems related to the second Painlev\'e equation can be transformed into a Hamiltonian system (which we call the cubic Bureau Hamiltonian system) via the iterative polynomial regularisation.