Invariants of a Remarkable Family of Nonlinear Equations

In classical literature, invariants of families of differentialequations were considered for linear equations only, e.g. the renownedLaplace invariants for linear hyperbolic partial differential equationsand invariants of linear ordinary differential equations with variablecoefficients. The restriction to linear equations was essential inpioneering works of Cockle, Laguerre, Halphen, andForsyth for tackling the problem of invariants of differentialequations. Lie regretted that these authors did not use advantagesprovided by his theory of infinite continuous groups, but he himself didnot undertake further developments in this direction.Recently, the present author considered the possibility hinted byLie's remark and introduced the infinitesimal technique in thetheory of invariants of families of differential equations thatwas lacking in old methods. In consequence, a simple unifiedapproach was developed for calculation of invariants of algebraicand differential equations independent on the assumption oflinearity of equations. It was employed recently for calculationof Laplace type invariants for parabolic equations. Here, themethod is applied to calculation of invariants for the family ofnonlinear equations appearing in the problem on linearization ofnonlinear ordinary differential equations.