1. Introduction
The precise meaning of the solution of a system of differential equations can be cast in several ways [
1]. We say that we have determined a closed-form solution for a dynamical system when we have determined a set of explicit functions describing the variation of the dependent variables in terms of the independent variable(s). On the other hand, when we have proved the existence of a sufficient number of independent explicit first integrals and invariants for the dynamical system, we say that we have found an analytic solution of the dynamical equations. In addition, an algebraic solution is found when one has proved the existence of a sufficient number of explicit transformations which permit the reduction of the system of differential equations to a system of algebraic equations. A feature that is central to each of these three equivalent prescriptions of integrability is the existence of explicit functions that are first integrals/invariants or the coefficient functions of the aforementioned transformations.
A first integral (FI) of a dynamical system is a scalar
I defined on the phase space of the system such that
. The FIs are classified according to the power of the momenta. The linear FIs (LFIs) are linear in the momenta, the quadratic FIs (QFIs) contain products of two momenta, and so on. A dynamical system of
n degrees of freedom is called integrable if it admits
n (functionally) independent FIs which are in involution [
2], that is, their Poisson brackets are zero, i.e.,
. The maximum number of independent FIs that a dynamical system of
n degrees of freedom can have is
, and when this is the case, an integrable system is called superintegrable. The above apply to all dynamical systems which are described by dynamical equations independently if they are Lagrangian or Hamiltonian. If the dynamical system is Hamiltonian, then the FIs are defined equivalently by the requirement
, where
H is the Hamiltonian function of the system.
FIs are important for the determination of the solution and the study of dynamical systems. In particular, when a dynamical system is integrable, then (in principle) the solution of the dynamical equations can be found by means of quadratures. Such dynamical systems are characterized as Liouville integrable. For this reason, the systematic computation of FIs is a topic of active interest for a long time, perhaps by the time of the early Mechanics. Originally, the FIs were concerned in the field of the geometry of surfaces (see, for example, in [
3]) where an attempt was made to compute all integrable and superintegrable 2d surfaces. A new dimension to the topic gave the introduction of the theorem of Noether in 1918 [
4] which prevails the topic since then. More recently, one more systematic method, but less general than the Noether one, was presented in which one assumes a general form of the QFI and then uses the condition
, or the
, to find a system of simultaneous equations involving the coefficients defining
I (see, for instance, in [
5,
6,
7,
8]). The solution of that system of conditions provides us with all the QFIs admitted by a given dynamical system.
The determination of integrable and superintegrable systems is a topic which is in continuous investigation. Obviously a universal method which computes the FIs for all types of dynamical equations independently of their complexity and degrees of freedom is not available. For this reason, the existing studies restrict their considerations to flat spaces or spaces of constant curvature of low dimension (see, e.g., in [
3,
9,
10,
11,
12,
13,
14,
15] and references therein). The prevailing cases involve the autonomous conservative dynamical systems with two degrees of freedom and the classification of the potential functions in integrable and superintegrable. A comprehensive review of the known integrable and superintegrable 2d autonomous potentials is given in [
16].
Besides the two methods mentioned above, other approaches have appeared. For example, Koenigs [
17] used coordinate transformations in order to solve the system of equations resulting from the condition
. This solution of that system of equations gives the general functional form of the QFIs and the superintegrable free Hamiltonians, that is, the ones which possess two more QFIs—in addition to the Hamiltonian—which are functionally independent. Koenig’s method has been generalized in several works (see in [
18] and references cited therein) for two dimensional autonomous conservative systems.
In the present work, we follow the method which uses the solution of the simultaneous system of equations resulting from the condition
This approach has been used extensively, see, e.g., in [
5,
6,
7]; however, always for special cases only. In this work, we use Theorem 1 proved in [
19], which gives the general solution of this system in terms of the collineations and the Killing tensors (KTs) of the kinetic metric in the configuration space. This solution is systematic and covariant therefore can be used in higher dimensions and for curved configuration spaces. Furthermore, it is shown that it is directly related to the Noether approach.
Theorem 1 is applied to the case of 2d autonomous conservative dynamical systems in order to determine the integrable and the superintegrable potentials. It is found that the integrable potentials are classified in Class I and Class II and that superintegrable potentials exist in both classes. All potentials together with their QFIs are listed in tables for easy reference. All the results listed in the review paper of [
16] as well as in more recent works (see, e.g., in [
14,
15]) are recovered while some new ones are found which admit time-dependent LFIs and QFIs.
2. Gauged Noether Symmetries and QFIs
We consider an autonomous conservative dynamical system of
n degrees of freedom
with kinetic energy
where
. We define in the configuration space of the system the kinetic metric
by the requirement
When the dynamical system is regular, that is,
it can be shown that the dynamical equations can be written in the form
where
are the Riemann connection coefficients defined by the kinetic metric
,
stands for the conservative forces, a comma indicates the partial derivative and the Einstein summation convention is used. Finally, the metric
is used for lowering and raising the indices.
The main methods for the determination of the FIs of Equation (
1) are
The two methods are related as follows.
In the Noether approach the Noether symmetries are generated by vector fields (We restrict our considerations to vector fields in the jet space
.).
whose first prolongation
in the jet space
is given by
Let
be the Lagrangian of the dynamical system. The Noether symmetries of Equation (
1) are its Lie symmetries which satisfy in addition the Noether condition
where
is the Noether or the gauge function. According to the theorem of Noether, a Noether symmetry produces the FI
The Noether symmetries are classified in a formal way in two classes (The original paper of Noether does not distinguish these classes. For a recent enlightening discussion of Noether theorem see in [
21] and references therein.):
- (a)
The point Noether symmetries whose generators are vector fields on the augmented configuration space and usually lead to LFIs.
- (b)
The generalized Noether symmetries whose generators are vector fields in the jet space which produce FIs of higher degree.
In the present work, we restrict our considerations to generalized Noether symmetries in the first jet space , which produce QFIs.
The 2d autonomous potentials which admit point Noether symmetries have already been classified in [
12] and more recently recovered and extended in [
13]. Furthermore, in [
13] it has been shown that the generators of the point Noether symmetries are the elements of the homothetic algebra of the kinetic metric. Obviously that firm result is not expected to apply in the case of generalized Noether symmetries which form an infinite dimensional Lie group.
It is well known [
22] that the generalized Noether symmetries have one extra degree of freedom (being special generalized Lie symmetries) which is removed if we consider the gauge condition
, which we assume to be the case. Therefore, the (gauged) Noether symmetries we consider are generated by vector fields of the form
and accordingly the Noether condition and the corresponding FI are simplified as follows,
In the direct method, one assumes for the QFI the generic expression
where
,
, and
are unknown tensor quantities and demands the condition (Equivalently, if the system is Hamiltonian, one requires
where
is the Poisson bracket.)
This condition leads to a system of simultaneous equations among the coefficients
,
, and
whose solution provides all the LFIs and the QFIs of the system of this functional form. The involvement of the specific dynamical system is in the replacement of the term
whenever it appears from the dynamical Equation (
1).
The direct approach is related to the Noether symmetries because once one has determined the QFI the generator of the corresponding gauged Noether symmetry and the Noether function follow immediately. Indeed for a gauged Noether symmetry (in the gauge
) relation Equation (
4) becomes
Replacing
we find
and using Equation (
6) it follows
that is, we obtain directly the Noether generator and the Noether function from the QFI
I by reading the coefficients
,
and
, respectively. It can be proved that (a) the set
does satisfy the gauged Noether condition
and (b) the QFI
I defined in Equation (
6) is not in general Noether invariant (as it is the case for the point Noether symmetries—see proposition 2.2 in [
23]). Finally, the (gauged) point Noether symmetries, which are defined by the vector
(
, give the LFIs whereas the (gauged) generalized Noether symmetries with
give the QFIs.
3. The QFIs of an Autonomous Conservative Dynamical System
It is known (see, e.g., in [
5,
7]) that condition
leads to the following system of equations (using the dynamical Equations (
1) to replace
whenever it appears the condition
is written)
Here, round/square brackets indicate symmetrization/antisymmetrization of the enclosed indices and a semicolon denotes the Riemannian covariant derivative. In the special case of a scalar function, for example, the potential V, it holds that .
Condition
implies that
is a Killing tensor (KT) of order 2 (possibly zero) of the kinetic metric
. Because
is autonomous we assume
where
is an arbitrary analytic function and
(
) is a KT of order 2 of the metric
This choice of
and Equation (11) indicates that we set
where
is an arbitrary analytic function and
,
are arbitrary vectors. With these choices the system of Equations (10)–(13) becomes
Conditions Equations (14)–(17) must be supplemented with the integrability conditions
and
for the scalar
The integrability condition
gives—if we make use of Equations (16) and (17)—the PDE
Condition
gives the equation known as the second-order Bertrand–Darboux PDE
where indices enclosed between vertical lines are overlooked by symmetrization or antisymmetrization symbols.
Finally, the system of equations which we have to solve consists of Equations (14)–(
19). The general solution of that system in terms of the collineations of the kinetic metric is given in the following Theorem (see [
19]).
Theorem 1. The functions are assumed to be analytic so that they may be represented by polynomial expansion as follows,where , or may be infinite, and . Then, the independent QFIs of an autonomous conservative dynamical system are the following. Integral 1.where , are KTs, and . Integral 2.where , are such that , are KTs, , and . Integral 3.where , is such that is a KT and . It can be checked that the FIs listed above produce all the potentials which admit a LFI or a QFI given in [
13] and are due to point Noether symmetries. Since, as shown above, these FIs also follow form a gauged velocity dependent Noether symmetry we conclude that
there does not exist a one-to-one correspondence between Noether FIs and the type of Noether symmetry. For example the FI of the total energy (Hamiltonian)
(case Integral 1 for
and
) is generated by the point Noether symmetry
and also by the gauged generalized Noether symmetry
.
The FI for be a HV with conformal factor is generated by the point Noether symmetry such that , and also by the gauged generalized Noether symmetry .
As a final example, we consider the FI
for the gradient HV
where
with
). This FI is generated by the point Noether symmetry
where
are non-zero constants and
, and also by the gauged generalized Noether symmetry
4. The Determination of the QFIs
From Theorem 1 follows that for the determination of the QFIs the following problems have to be solved.
Determine the KTs of order 2 of the kinetic metric .
Determine the special subspace of KTs of order 2 of the form where is a vector.
Determine the KTs satisfying the constraint .
Find all KVs of the kinetic metric which satisfy the constraint where s is a constant, possibly zero.
We note that constraints a. and b. depend only on the kinetic metric. Because the kinetic energy is a positive definite non-singular quadratic 2-form, we can always choose coordinates in which this form reduces either to
or to
As we know the KTs and all the collineations of a conformally flat metric (of Euclidean or Lorentzian character) [
24], we already have the results for all autonomous (Newtonian or special relativistic) conservative dynamical systems.
The involvement of the potential function is only in the constraints c. and d. which also depend on the geometric characteristics of the kinetic metric. There are two different ways to proceed.
4.1. The Potential Is Known
In this case the following procedure is used.
- (a)
Substitute V in the constraints and and find conditions for the defining parameters of and .
- (b)
From these conditions determine , .
- (c)
Substitute in the constraint and find the function .
- (d)
Using the above results write the FI I in each case and determine directly the gauged Noether generator and the Noether function.
- (e)
Examine if I can be reduced to simpler independent FIs or if it is new.
4.2. The Potential Is Unknown
In this case the following algorithm is used.
- (a)
Compute the KTs and the KVs of the kinetic metric.
- (b)
Solve the PDE
or the ( The integrability conditions for the scalar
G are very general PDEs from which one can find only special solutions by making additional simplifying assumptions (e.g., symmetries) involving
,
, and
itself. Therefore, one does not find the most general solution. For example, in [
25] it is required that the QFI
is axisymmetric, that is,
, where
is the first prolongation of the rotation
. It is proved easily that in this case we have also the constraints
and
.)
and find the possible potentials
.
- (c)
Substitute the potentials and the KTs found in the constraint and compute the function .
- (d)
Write the FI I for each potential and determine the gauged Noether generator and the Noether function.
- (e)
Examine if I can be reduced further to simpler independent FIs or if it is a new FI.
In the following sections we assume the potential is not given and apply the second procedure. For that we need first the geometric quantities of the 2d Euclidean plane .
5. The Geometric Quantities of
Using well-known results (see also in [
11,
20]), we state the following.
-
admits two gradient Killing vectors (KVs)
whose generating functions are
respectively and one non-gradient KV (the rotation)
. These vectors can be written collectively
where
are arbitrary constants, possibly zero.
- The general KT of order 2 in
is
from which follows
where
are arbitrary constants.
- The vectors
generating KTs of
of the form
are
where
are arbitrary constants.
- The KTs
in
generated from the vector Equation (
25) are
where (Note that
in Equation (
25) is the sum of the non-proper ACs of
and not of its KVs which give
).
. Observe that these KTs are special cases of the general KTs Equation (
23) for
.
According to Theorem 1 the above are common to all 2d Newtonian systems and what changes in each particular case are the constraints and which determine the potential .
6. Computing the Potentials and the FIs
The application of Theorem 1 in the case of indicates that there are three different ways to find potentials that admit QFIs (other than the Hamiltonian):
(1) The constraint
, which leads to the PDE
(2) The constraint
, which leads to the second order Bertrand–Darboux PDE (
)
(3) The constraint
with (For
this constraint is a subcase of
, hence only the case
must be considered.).
and the integrability condition
, which lead to the PDEs
For
and
Equation (
31) reduces to Equation (
28). Therefore, in order to find new potentials one of these conditions must be relaxed. This case of finding potentials is the most difficult because the problem is overdetermined, i.e., we have a system of three PDEs Equations (
29)–(
31) and only one unknown function, the
.
In the following sections, we solve these constraints and find the admitted potentials which, as a rule, are integrable. Subsequently, we apply Theorem 1 to each of these potentials in order to compute the admitted FIs and determine which of those are integrable and in particular superintegrable.
7. The Constraint
The constraint
gives Equation (
27) which can be solved using the method of the characteristic equation.
To cover all possible occurrences we have to consider the following cases. (a)
and
(KVs
and
; (b)
and
(KV
; and (c)
(KVs
;
; and
. For each case the solution is shown in the following table.
Case | KV | |
a | | |
b | , | |
c | | |
We shall refer to the above solutions as Class I potentials. In order to determine if these potentials admit QFIs, we apply Theorem 1 to the following potentials resulting from the table above.
Before we continue we recall that if are FIs of a given dynamical system then any function is also a FI of the dynamical system.
7.1. The Potential
Case a. and .
The potential reduces to .
We note that the Hamiltonian. We compute , .
The FIs
,
and
are functionally independent and satisfy the relations
Therefore, the potential is superintegrable.
We note that the FIs
,
are, respectively, the FIs (3.1.4) and (3.2.20) of [
16].
Case b. and .
For
and
, we have the potential
,
, which admits the additional time-dependent FI
. Observe also that in this case
reduces to
which using the Hamiltonian generates the QFI
The LFI
is the (3.1.4) of [
16].
We compute because is a time-dependent FI.
The potential of the case b is integrable because .
For the special case
we have
The triplet proves that this potential is superintegrable.
We note that in [
16] only the Class II potentials (to be considered in the next section) are examined for superintegrability (see in [
16] p. 108 (3.2.34)–(3.2.36)).
For
, the potential
is not included in [
16] because the author seeks for autonomous LFIs of the form (3.1.1) and in that case
.
7.2. The Potential
We consider the case , because otherwise we retrieve the potential discussed above.
Therefore, the potential
is integrable. This potential is also of the form
, which is the (3.2.20) of [
16].
For , we obtain the potential , , which admits the additional FI . This potential is superintegrable because of the functionally independent triplet , , and .
7.3. The Potential
We find the time-dependent LFI
For
this potential is integrable. For
we do not know.
- For
and
,
, the independent FIs are
Observe that
is the energy of the system. The LFI
is the (3.1.6) of [
16]. The functionally independent triplet
H,
,
proves that this potential is superintegrable. We have
If
and
we obtain the superintegrable (A subcase of the above superintegrable potential is the potential
.) potential
which admits the additional time-dependent LFIs
In
Section 4 of the work in [
26], the author has found the superintegrable ClassI potentials
and
.
We note that in the review in [
16], the time-dependent LFIs of the potentials
,
are not discussed. In general, in [
16] all the time-dependent FIs are ignored, although they can be used to decide the superintegrability of the system.
7.4. Summary
We collect the results for the
Class I potentials in the following tables.
Potential | Ref. [16] | LFIs and QFIs |
| - | |
Integrable potentials |
, , | - | , ,
|
, | (3.2.20) | , ,
|
| (3.1.6) | |
Superintegrable Potentials |
Potential | Ref. [16] | LFIs and QFIs |
| (3.1.4), (3.2.20) | , , , |
, | (3.2.20) | , , , , |
, | (3.2.20) | , , , |
, | (3.1.6) | , , , |
, | (3.1.5) | , , , , , |
8. The Constraint
In this case, we have the PDE Equation (
28)
The potentials which follow from this equation we call
Class II potentials. This equation cannot be solved in full generality (see also in [
16]), therefore we consider various cases which produce the known FIs. We emphasize that the potentials we find in this section are only a subset of the possible potentials which will follow from the general solution of Equation (
32). However the important point here is that we recover the known results with a direct and unified approach which can be used in the future by other authors to discover new integrable and superintegrable potentials in
and in other spaces.
(1)
,
and
. Then
and Equation (
32) becomes
whose solution gives
where
are arbitrary constants.
For the subcase
with
, we find the QFI
where
and
. This is the well-known Ermakov–Lewis invariant; see also (3.2.11) of the work in [
16].
For
, the potential Equation (
34) is written equivalently
where
c is an arbitrary constant.
This potential admits QFIs for
. Therefore,
with the QFI
where
.
For
,
, the potential
becomes
This potential admits QFIs for
. Then,
with the QFI
Observe that is of the form or with . Therefore, is included in case .
(2)
and
. Then
and Equation (
32) becomes
For
Equation (
38) reduces to Equation (
33).
For
the PDE Equation (
38) gives the Darboux solution
where
,
and
.
We find the QFI (see (3.2.9) of the work in [
16]).
(3)
,
,
and
. Then,
and Equation (
32) gives again a potential of the form Equation (
39), but with
and
.
We find the QFI (see (3.2.13) in [
16])
(4a)
and
. Then,
and Equation (
32) becomes
which gives the potential
where
.
We find the QFI (see (3.2.15) in [
16])
(4b)
and
. Then,
and Equation (
32) becomes
which gives the potential
where
.
Observe that the potential Equation (
46) is just the Equation (
43) after the rotation
. All the results of the case 4b can be derived from the case 4a if we apply the transformation
. For this reason the case 4b is ignored when we search for integrable systems, but in superintegrability the PDE Equation (
45) shall be proved useful (see superintegrable potential Equation (
74) in
Section 8.1).
(5)
,
,
,
and
. Then,
and Equation (
32) becomes
This is written equivalently
and gives the potential
where
and
.
We find the QFI (see (3.2.17) in [
16])
(6)
,
and
. Then,
and Equation (
32) becomes
from which follows
where
and
.
We find the QFI (see (3.2.18) in [
16])
(7) , and . Then, .
Equation (
32) becomes
which gives the separable potential
We find the irreducible QFIs (see (3.2.20) of [
16])
It can be shown that there are four special potentials of the potential Equation (
55) which admit additional time-dependent QFIs and are superintegrable. These are
7a. The potential
admits the independent FIs
7b. The potential
admits the FI
.
7c. The potential
admits the FI
.
7d. The potential (see [
8])
admits the independent FIs.
In all the above relations, are arbitrary constants.
(8) and .
Then,
and Equation (
32) becomes
Solving Equation (
56), we find the potential
where
.
This potential admits the QFI
We note that . Here, are parameters of the potential and therefore cannot be taken as independent parameters of the QFI.
For
, we have
,
and the potential reduces to
which is the solution of the 1d-wave equation.
For the potential Equation (
59) we find the QFI
(9)
,
and
. Then,
and Equation (
32) becomes
Solving Equation (
60), we find the potential
where
and
.
This potential admits the QFI (see (3.2.21) in [
16])
Observe that for the trivial KT
the condition
gives
for all potentials
. Therefore, we recover the trivial result that all 2d-potentials
admit the QFI
Comparing with previous works, we see that the potentials
and
are new. The potential
is mentioned in [
8].
8.1. The Superintegrable Potentials
When a potential belongs to two of the above nine
Class II cases simultaneously it is superintegrable (e.g., potentials (3.2.34)–(3.2.36) of [
16]), because in that case the potential admits two more autonomous FIs other than the Hamiltonian. From the above results, we find the following
Class II superintegrable potentials (see also in [
14,
15]).
(S1) The potential (see (3.2.34) in [
16], case (b) in [
8,
14])
where
are arbitrary constants.
This is of the form Equation (
34) for
,
and also of the separable form Equation (
55). Therefore,
admits the additional QFIs
We note that , , is the for , and therefore admits also the time-dependent FIs , .
(S2) Potentials of the form Equations (
43) and (
55). Then we have to solve the systems of PDEs Equation (
42) and
. We find
and the QFIs
where
are arbitrary constants.
This is the superintegrable potential of case (a) in [
14]. Note that the QFI
given in [
14] is not correct. The correct is the
of Equation (68) above.
We remark that the potential (3.2.35) in [
16] is superintegrable only for
in which case the potential becomes
for
,
and
.
(S3) Potentials of the form Equations (
34) and (
43). We solve the system of PDEs Equations (
33) and (
42). We find
and the QFIs
where
.
The superintegrable potential Equation (
71) is symmetric (
) to the superintegrable potential of case (c) of [
14]. Indeed in order to find the superintegrable potential of [
14] we simply consider the case leading to the potential of the form
of Equation (
43) for
instead of
.
We note that if we rename the constants in Equation (
71) as
,
,
we recover the superintegrable potential (3.2.36) of [
16]. Indeed, we have
(S4) If we substitute the solution Equation (
43) of the PDE Equation (
42) in the PDE Equation (
45), we find that for
both PDEs Equations (
42) and (
45) are satisfied simultaneously. Therefore, the potential (see case (d) in [
14])
is superintegrable with additional QFIs
where
and
.
We note that in case (d) in [
14] the corresponding QFIs
and
are not correct, because
and
. Moreover, this superintegrable potential is the case (E20) in [
15], and it is not mentioned in the review [
16].
In the following tables, we collect the results on
Class II potentials with the corresponding reference to the review paper [
16].
Integrable Potentials |
Potential | Ref. [16] | LFIs and QFIs |
| (3.2.10) | |
| - | |
, ,
| (3.2.7,8) | |
, ,
| (3.2.7,12) | |
| (3.2.15) | |
, , | (3.2.17) |
|
, , | (3.2.18) | |
| (3.2.20) | , |
, | - |
|
| - | |
, ,
| (3.2.21) | |
Superintegrable Potentials |
Potential | Ref. [16] | LFIs and QFIs |
| (3.2.34) | , , - For : , where - For : , where |
| (3.2.35) for | , , |
| (3.2.36) | ,
|
| - | ,
|
| (3.2.20) | , , ,
|
| (3.2.20) | , , |
| (3.2.20) | , , |
, | (3.2.20) | , , ,
|
9. The Constraint
The integrability condition of the constraint
gives the PDE Equation (
31).
As mentioned above in
Section 6, in order to find new potentials from the PDE Equation (
31) one (or both) of the conditions
and
must be relaxed. However, if we do find a new potential, this solution should satisfy also the remaining PDEs Equations (
29) and (
30) in order to admit the time-dependent QFI
given in case
Integral 3 of Theorem 1. New potentials which admit the QFI
shall be referred as
Class III potentials.
We note that the PB . Therefore, to find a new integrable potential we should find a Class III potential admitting two independent FIs of the form , say and , such that .
After relaxing one, or both, of the conditions
and
we found that the only non-trivial
Class III potential is the superintegrable potential
(see
Section 7.3) found for
or
above. Therefore, there are no new
Class III potentials.
10. Using FIs to Find the Solution of 2d Integrable Dynamical Systems
In this section we consider examples which show how one uses the 2d (super-)integrable potentials to find the solution of the dynamical equations.
(1) The superintegrable potential where .
We find the solution by using the time-dependent LFIs
and
. Specifically, we have
Similarly for the LFIs
we find
Here,
are arbitrary constants.
(2) The integrable potential where .
Using the LFI , we find directly where are arbitrary constants.
Using the QFI
, we have
where
is an arbitrary constant. The inverse function of
is the solution of the system. If the function
is given, the solution can be explicitly determined.
(3) For the integrable potential
by using the QFIs
we find
where
are constants.
11. Conclusions
Using Theorem 1 we have reproduced in a systematic way most known integrable and superintegrable 2d potentials of autonomous conservative dynamical systems. The method used being covariant it is directly applicable to spaces of higher dimensions and to metrics with any signature and curvature.
We have found two classes of potentials, and in each class we have determined the integrable and the superintegrable potentials together with their QFIs. As the general solution of the PDE Equation (
28) is not possible, we have found the potentials due to certain solutions only. New solutions of this equation will lead to new integrable and possibly superintegrable 2d potentials.
It appears that the most difficult part in the application of Theorem 1 to higher dimensions and curved configuration spaces is the determination of the KTs. The use of algebraic computing is limited once one considers higher dimensions since then the number of the components of the KT increases dramatically. Fortunately, today new techniques in Differential Geometry have been developed (see, e.g., in [
24,
27,
28,
29,
30]), especially in the case of spaces of constant curvature and decomposable spaces, which can help to deal with this problem.