Partial differential equations from matrices with orthogonal columns (Q6118804)

For \(\phi\) a strictly convex smooth function defined on a connected subset \(\Omega \subset \mathbb{R}^n\), its Hessian \(H\phi\) defines at each point an inner product, so the inverse of the Hessian matrix is also a smooth field of inner products. If \(g\) is a field of inner products which is the Hessian of a function, then \(\partial g_{ij}/\partial x_k=\partial g_{ik}/\partial x_j\), \(1\leq i,j,k\leq n\). For strictly convex smooth functions on domains of Euclidean space, the author considers the system of third order PDEs \[ \partial (H\phi ^{-1}_{ij})/\partial x_k=\partial (H\phi ^{-1}_{ik})/\partial x_j, 1\leq i,j,k\leq n, \] which may be understood as the closure of the first order prolongation of a family of PDEs. He describes explicitly its real analytic solutions and all the solutions which satisfy a genericity condition, as well as a family of non-generic solutions which has an application to Poisson geometry and Kähler structures on toric varieties. The methods are geometric: the theory of Hessian metrics and symmetric spaces links the analysis of the system of PDEs to properties of the manifold of matrices with orthogonal columns.