Poisson pencils, algebraic integrability, and separation of variables (Q691173)

The authors present a recently introduced method for solving the Hamilton-Jacobi equations by the method of separation of variables. This method which has recently been exposed in the literature, is based on the notion of pencil of Poisson brackets and on the bihamiltonian approach to integrable systems and can be seen as a kind of bridge between the classical and the modern points of view, putting an emphasis on the geometrical structures of the Hamiltonian theory. Its additional structure is simply the requirement of the existence, on the symplectic manifold \((M,\omega)\) of a second Hamiltonian structure, compatible with the one defined by \(\omega\). They discuss how separability conditions can be intrinsically characterized within such a geometrical set-up, the definition of the separation coordinates being encompassed in the bihamiltonian structure itself. In the last subsection, the authors discuss these constructions studying in details a particular example, based on a generalization of the classical Toda Lattice. They apply their geometrical scheme to study a specific reduction of this generalized Toda system and find integrals of the motion which are not encompassed in the Lax representation.