Symmetry approaches for reductions of PDEs, differential constraints and Lagrange-Charpit method

Abstract

Many methods for reducing and simplifying differential equations are known. They provide various generalizations of the original symmetry approach of Sophus Lie. Plenty of relations between them have been noticed and in this note a unifying approach will be discussed. It is rather close to the differential constraint method, but we make this rigorous basing on recent advances in compatibility theory of non-linear overdetermined systems and homological methods for PDEs.