Abstract:
I introduce the general concept of nonlinear self-adjointness. It embraces
author's previous notions of strict self-adjointness and quasi
self-adjointness. But the set of nonlinearly self-adjoint equations is
essentially wider and includes, in particular, all linear equations. The
construction of conservation laws demonstrates a practical significance of
the nonlinear self-adjointness. Namely, conservation laws can be associated
with symmetries for all nonlinearly self-adjoint systems of differential
equations. The system can contain any number of equations. This approach
provides a new method for constructing conservation laws and extends
Noether's theorem from variational problems to arbitrary systems of
differential equations. The new theory is illustrated by various
applications.