Rational degenerations of \({\mathtt M}\)-curves, totally positive Grassmannians and KP2-solitons (Q1663674)

The aim of this paper is to establish a new connection between the theory of totally positive Grassmannians and the theory of M-curves using the finite-gap theory for solitons of the KP equation. KP equation denotes the Kadomtsev-Petviashvili 2 equation, which is the first flow from the KP hierarchy. The authors assume that all KP times are real. They associate to any point of the real totally positive Grassmannian \(\mathrm{Gr}^{\mathrm{TP}}(N,M)\) a reducible curve which is a rational degeneration of an M-curve of minimal genus \(g=N(M-N)\), and they reconstruct the real algebraic-geometric data à la Krichever for the underlying real bounded multiline KP soliton solutions. The main result of this paper is that, for soliton solutions associated with the principal cell \(\mathrm{Gr}^{\mathrm{TP}}(N,M)\), the authors can always fix algebraic-geometric data on reducible curves, generating these solutions, with additional requirements that these curves are rational degenerations of some family of regular M-curves and that the divisor points satisfy the reality and regularity conditions of [\textit{B. A. Dubrovin} and \textit{S. M. Natanzon}, Math. USSR, Izv. 32, No. 2, 269--288 (1988; Zbl 0672.35072); translation from Izv. Akad. Nauk SSSR, Ser. Mat. 52, No. 2, 267--286 (1988)]. From this construction, it follows that these multiline solitons can be explicitly obtained by degenerating regular real finite-gap solutions corresponding to smooth M-curves. In their approach, the authors rule the addition of each new rational component to the spectral curve via an elementary Darboux transformation which corresponds to a section of a specific projection \(\mathrm{Gr}^{\mathrm{TP}}(r+1,M-N+r+1)\longmapsto \mathrm{Gr}^{\mathrm{TP}}(r,M-N+r)\). This paper is organized as follows: The first section is an introduction to the subject. In the second section the authors recall some known facts about regular finite gap and multi-soliton solutions of the KP equation. In the third section, the authors associate the rational degeneration of a genus \((M-1)\) hyperelliptic M-curve and construct the effective divisor for soliton data in \(\mathrm{Gr}^{\mathrm{TP}}(1, M)\). Then they present the main ideas of the algebraic-geometric construction for soliton data in \(\mathrm{Gr}^{\mathrm{TP}}(N, M)\). The forth section concerns the reducible M-curve and the effective divisor for soliton data in \(\mathrm{Gr}^{\mathrm{TP}}(N, M)\). The proof of some results is carried out in detail in section 5. Analytic properties of the effective divisor are given in section 6. In this section 7 the authors construct the rational curve and the vacuum pole divisor associated to generic soliton data in \(\mathrm{Gr}^{\mathrm{TP}}(2, 4)\). The paper is supported by two appendices.