KP solitons and total positivity for the Grassmannian (Q481111)

The KP equation is the two-dimensional non-linear wave equation \[ \frac{\partial}{\partial x} \left( - 4 \frac{\partial u }{\partial t} +6u \frac{\partial u }{\partial x} + \frac{\partial^3 u }{\partial x^3}\right)+ 3\, \frac{\partial^2 u }{\partial y^2}=0 \] which was proposed for study in the 70's in connection to the transversal stability of the soliton solutions of the KdV equation. In this paper, the authors consider solutions which are regular in the entire \(xy\)-plane where they are localized along certain rays - hence called line-soliton solutions. Such solutions can be constructed from a point of \(G_{r_{k,n}}\), the space of \(k\)-dimensional subspaces of \(\mathbb{R}^n\). Previous results in the area classified such solutions arising from the totally non-negative part of the Grassmannian. In this paper, it is established a tight connection between total positivity on the Grassmannian and the regular soliton solutions to the KP equation. Additionally, the authors seek a combinatorial classification of the patterns generated by the line-soliton solutions and a complete classification of the soliton's patterns coming from elements of \((G_{r_{k,n}})_{\geq 0}\) is provided when the value of the time parameter is very large, as well as the complete classification of the soliton graphs coming from elements of \((G_{r_{2,n}})_{> 0}\).