On the tau-function for the Schlesinger equation of isomonodromic deformations. (Q1889525)

The author gives an elementary proof that movable singularities of a Schlesinger equation, which describes isomonodromic deformations of a Fuchsian system with \(n\) finite singular points \(a_i\), \(i=1,\dots,n\), coincide with zeros of Miwa's tau-function. The proof is based on a representation of the latter function as a result of a sequence of elementary gauge transformations applied to the Fuchsian system. Let \(\Theta\) denote the set of movable singularities for an initial value problem for the Schlesinger equation. The principal fact of a general theory of isomonodromic deformations is the existence of a point \(a=a^*\in\Theta\) of an auxiliary Fuchsian system which has an additional unbranched singularity at infinity and is gauge equivalent to the original Fuchsian system. Given the auxiliary Fuchsian system, it is possible to construct explicitly this gauge transformation as a finite sequence of elementary gauge transformations regular outside the zeros of explicitly computed locally holomorphic functions \(b_j(a)\). The singularities of the obtained gauge matrix, in some neighborhood of the point \(a^*\), are given by zeros of a holomorphic function \(\tau^*(a)=\prod_jb_j(a)\) and obviously coincide with the points of the set \(\Theta\). The author shows that these locally holomorphic functions \(\tau^*(a)\) can be glued together into a global holomorphic function \(\tau(a)\) which coincides with Miwa's tau-function up to a constant multiplier.