Symmetric Toda, gradient flows, and tridiagonalization (Q6098263)

The nonperiodic Toda lattice is the system of \(n\) particles of unit mass on a line governed by the Hamiltonian \[H=\frac12\sum_{i=1}^n p_i^2+\sum_{i=1}^{n-1} \exp(q_i-q_{i+1}).\] Liouville integrability of the system can be established thanks to the tridiagonal Lax matrix \(M\) with entries \[M_{ij}=-\delta_{ij} p_j+(\delta_{i,j-1}+\delta_{i,j+1}) \exp\left(\frac12 (q_i-q_{i+1})\right).\] It was observed by \textit{J. Moser} [Lect. Notes Phys. None, 467--497 (1975; Zbl 0323.70012)] that the flow of this sytem can be expressed as a gradient flow on the projective space \(\mathbb{P}^{n-1}(\mathbb{R})\). In this paper, the authors obtain an analogous expression for the symmetric Toda system of \textit{P. Deift} et al. [Commun. Pure Appl. Math. 39, 183--232 (1986; Zbl 0606.58020)], where \(M\) is taken to be an arbitrary symmetric matrix. They relate the symmetric Toda flow to the gradient flow on the adjoint orbit \(\mathcal{O}_\lambda\) in \({u}(n)\) of \(\mathrm{diag}(\mathrm{i} \lambda_1,\ldots,\mathrm{i} \lambda_n)\), where \(\lambda_1, \ldots,\lambda_n\) are the real eigenvalues of \(M\). The result uses an identification of \(\mathcal{O}_\lambda\) with the flag variety \(\mathrm{Fl}_n(\mathbb{C})\); this was previously proved by the authors in [Commun. Math. Phys. 398, No. 3, 1213--1289 (2023; Zbl 1526.17011)] for the case where the flow is mapped into the totally non-negative part \(\mathrm{Fl}_n^{\geq 0}(\mathbb{C})\). The authors then show how their construction allows to interpret geometrically a `tridiagonalization method' due to P. Deift et al. [loc. cit.] that maps the symmetric Toda flow into a product of tridiagonal Toda flows. The paper finishes with some results and questions about the Toda flows induced on moment polytopes.