The NATO Advanced Research Workshop "Painleve Transcendents, their Asymp totics and Physical Applications," held at the Alpine Inn in Sainte-Adele, near Montreal, September 2 -7, 1990, brought together a group of experts to discuss the topic and produce this volume. There were 41 participants from 14 countries and 27 lectures were presented, all included in this volume. The speakers presented reviews of topics to which they themselves have made important contributions and also re sults of new original research. The result is a volume which, though multiauthored, has the character of a monograph on a single topic. This is the theory of nonlinear ordinary differential equations, the solutions of which have no movable singularities, other than poles, and the extension of this theory to partial differential equations. For short we shall call such systems "equations with the Painleve property." The search for such equations was a very topical mathematical problem in the 19th century. Early work concentrated on first order differential equations. One of Painleve's important contributions in this field was to develop simple methods applicable to higher order equations. In particular these methods made possible a complete analysis of the equation;; = f(y', y, x), where f is a rational function of y' and y, with coefficients that are analytic in x. The fundamental result due to Painleve (Acta Math."

This book shows how Lie group and integrability techniques, originally developed for differential equations, have been adapted to the case of difference equations. Difference equations are playing an increasingly important role in the natural sciences. Indeed, many phenomena are inherently discrete and thus naturally described by difference equations. More fundamentally, in subatomic physics, space-time may actually be discrete. Differential equations would then just be approximations of more basic discrete ones. Moreover, when using differential equations to analyze continuous processes, it is often necessary to resort to numerical methods. This always involves a discretization of the differential equations involved, thus replacing them by difference ones. Each of the nine peer-reviewed chapters in this volume serves as a self-contained treatment of a topic, containing introductory material as well as the latest research results and exercises. Each chapter is presented by one or more early career researchers in the specific field of their expertise and, in turn, written for early career researchers. As a survey of the current state of the art, this book will serve as a valuable reference and is particularly well suited as an introduction to the field of symmetries and integrability of difference equations. Therefore, the book will be welcomed by advanced undergraduate and graduate students as well as by more advanced researchers.

This book shows how Lie group and integrability techniques, originally developed for differential equations, have been adapted to the case of difference equations. Difference equations are playing an increasingly important role in the natural sciences. Indeed, many phenomena are inherently discrete and thus naturally described by difference equations. More fundamentally, in subatomic physics, space-time may actually be discrete. Differential equations would then just be approximations of more basic discrete ones. Moreover, when using differential equations to analyze continuous processes, it is often necessary to resort to numerical methods. This always involves a discretization of the differential equations involved, thus replacing them by difference ones. Each of the nine peer-reviewed chapters in this volume serves as a self-contained treatment of a topic, containing introductory material as well as the latest research results and exercises. Each chapter is presented by one or more early career researchers in the specific field of their expertise and, in turn, written for early career researchers. As a survey of the current state of the art, this book will serve as a valuable reference and is particularly well suited as an introduction to the field of symmetries and integrability of difference equations. Therefore, the book will be welcomed by advanced undergraduate and graduate students as well as by more advanced researchers.

The NATO Advanced Research Workshop "Painleve Transcendents, their Asymp totics and Physical Applications," held at the Alpine Inn in Sainte-Adele, near Montreal, September 2 -7, 1990, brought together a group of experts to discuss the topic and produce this volume. There were 41 participants from 14 countries and 27 lectures were presented, all included in this volume. The speakers presented reviews of topics to which they themselves have made important contributions and also re sults of new original research. The result is a volume which, though multiauthored, has the character of a monograph on a single topic. This is the theory of nonlinear ordinary differential equations, the solutions of which have no movable singularities, other than poles, and the extension of this theory to partial differential equations. For short we shall call such systems "equations with the Painleve property." The search for such equations was a very topical mathematical problem in the 19th century. Early work concentrated on first order differential equations. One of Painleve's important contributions in this field was to develop simple methods applicable to higher order equations. In particular these methods made possible a complete analysis of the equation;; = f(y', y, x), where f is a rational function of y' and y, with coefficients that are analytic in x. The fundamental result due to Painleve (Acta Math."

Difference equations are playing an increasingly important role in the natural sciences. Indeed many phenomena are inherently discrete and are naturally described by difference equations. Phenomena described by differential equations are therefore approximations of more basic discrete ones. Moreover, in their study it is very often necessary to resort to numerical methods. This always involves a discretization of the differential equations involved, thus replacing them by difference equations. This book shows how Lie group and integrability techniques, originally developed for differential equations, have been adapted to the case of difference ones. Each of the eleven chapters is a self-contained treatment of a topic, containing introductory material as well as the latest research results. The book will be welcomed by graduate students and researchers seeking an introduction to the field. As a survey of the current state of the art it will also serve as a valuable reference.