Fredholm Pfaffian \(\tau \)-functions for orthogonal isospectral and isomonodromic systems (Q2099135)

This paper is devoted to some applications of Fredholm Pfaffian \(\tau \)-functions for orthogonal isospectral and isomonodromic systems. The authors consider matrix Riemann-Hilbert problems (RHPs) on the circle \(S^1=\{z:z=e^{i\theta }\}\). Denote by \(\Psi_{+}(z)\in L_{+}\mathrm{GL}(N,\mathbb{C})\subset L\mathrm{GL}(N,\mathbb{C})\) the elements of the subgroup of the loop group \(L\mathrm{GL}(N,\mathbb{C})\) that are analytic inside the circle, and by \(\Psi_{-}(z)\in L_{-}\mathrm{GL}(N,\mathbb{C})\subset L\mathrm{GL}(N,\mathbb{C})\) those that are analytic outside, with \(\Psi_{-}(\infty )=\mathbf{I}\). The element of \(L\mathrm{GL}(N,\mathbb{C})\) which gives the jump across the circle is denoted by \(J(z)=\Psi_{-}(z)^{-1}\Psi_{+}(z)\). A factorization of this type is called ``direct factorization'', as opposed to a factorization of the type \(J(z)=\bar{\Psi}_{+}(z) \bar{\Psi}_{-}(z)^{-1}\), which is called the ``dual factorization''. Accordingly the the corresponding RHPs are called ``direct'' and ``dual''. In this framework, an effective approach has been proposed in [\textit{M. Cafasso} et al., Commun. Math. Phys. 365, No. 2, 741--772 (2019; Zbl 1417.37245); SIGMA, Symmetry Integrability Geom. Methods Appl. 14, Paper 104, 17 p. (2018; Zbl 1408.37124); \textit{M. Cafasso} and \textit{C.-Z. Wu}, Lett. Math. Phys. 109, No. 12, 2681--2722 (2019; Zbl 1436.37084)], where the authors studied the the so-called ``Widom constants'' associated to various classes of RHPs, also extended to orthogonal loop group Drinfeld-Sokolov reductions and isomonodromic deformations systems. To define a Widom \(\tau \)-function, denoted by \(\tau_{W}[J]\), one considers a RHP on the unit circle \(S^1\) with the jump \(J\) on \(S^1\) as stated above (see the paper for more technical details). Then the authors prove that the Widom \(\tau \)-function admits a representation as a product of free fermion states and admits a combinatorial expansion as a sum of products of finite determinants. It turns out that if the jump \(J\) in the Riemann-Hilbert factorization satisfies the orthogonal reduction condition, then \(\tau_{W}[J]\) can be written as a square \(\tau_{W}[J]= \tau_{\mathcal{O}}[J]^2\). Remarkably, the \(\tau \)-function \(\tau_{\mathcal{O}}[J]\) has a combinatorial expansion. The authors show that the combinatorial expansion of the \(\tau \)-function as a sum of correlators, each expressed as products of finite determinants, follows from using multicomponent fermionic vacuum expectation values of certain dressing operators encoding the initial conditions and dependence on the time parameters. After reducing to the orthogonal case, the correlators become finite Pfaffians. Moreover the determinantal \(\tau \)-functions, in both the Drinfeld-Sokolov case and the isomonodromic case, become squares of \(\tau \)-functions of Pfaffian type. The authors illustrate the theory by several examples, consisting of polynomial \(\tau \)-functions of orthogonal Drinfeld-Sokolov type and isomonodromic type with four regular singular points.