Majorana transformation for differential equations

Abstract

We present a method for reducing the order of ordinary differential equations satisfying a given scaling relation (Majorana scale-invariant equations). We also develop a variant of this method, aimed to reduce the degree of non-linearity of the lower-order equation. Some applications of these methods are carried out and, in particular, we show that second-order Emden-Fowler equations can be transformed into first-order Abel equations. The work presented here is a generalization of a method used by Majorana in order to solve the Thomas-Fermi equation.