Symmetries and Related Topics in Differential and Difference Equations

This volume represents the 2009 Jairo Charris Seminar in Symmetries of Differential and Difference Equations, which was held at the Universidad Sergio Arboleda in Bogota, Colombia. The papers include topics such as Lie symmetries, equivalence transformations and differential invariants, group theoretical methods in linear equations, namely differential Galois theory and Stokes phenomenon, and the development of some geometrical methods in theoretical physics The reader will find new interesting results in symmetries of differential and difference equations, applications in classical and quantum mechanics, two fundamental problems of theoretical mechanics, the mathematical nature of time in Lagrangian mechanics and the preservation of the equations of motion by changes of frame, and discrete Hamiltonian systems arising in geometrical optics and analogous to those of finite quantum mechanics. This book is published in cooperation with Instituto de Matematicas y sus Aplicaciones (IMA).