Relation between the Kadometsev–Petviashvili equation and the confocal involutive system

Abstract

The special quasiperiodic solution of the (2+1)-dimensional Kadometsev–Petviashvili equation is separated into three systems of ordinary differential equations, which are the second, third, and fourth members in the well-known confocal involutive hierarchy associated with the nonlinearized Zakharov–Shabat eigenvalue problem. The explicit theta function solution of the Kadometsev–Petviashvili equation is obtained with the help of this separation technique. A generating function approach is introduced to prove the involutivity and the functional independence of the conserved integrals which are essential for the Liouville integrability.