A gauge theory of the Kadomtsev-Petviashvili system (Q578678)

A unification of soliton equations called the Kadomtsev-Petviashvili system has been established by \textit{M. Sato} and \textit{Y. Sato} [Nonlinear partial differential equations in applied science, Proc. U.S.-Japan Semin., Tokyo 1982, North-Holland Math. Stud. 81, 259-271 (1983; Zbl 0528.58020)] by studying isospectral deformations of the constant operator \(D=d/dx\) in the category of pseudodifferential operators with function coefficients. The authors present a gauge theoretic interpretation of the Kadomtsev-Petviashvili system. The gauge group G is an infinite- dimensional Lie group of operators of the form \(\sum^{\infty}_{- \infty}u_ n(x)(d/dx)^ n\) with certain growth conditions. A new concept of ``connection'' is introduced that is defined not only for a subgroup but also for special subsets of G. The main result is that the space of solutions of the Kadomtsev-Petviashvili system defines a special flat connection. The flatness of this connection is expressed by the Zacharov-Shabat equation.