The Symmetry Structure of the Heavenly Equation

Abstract

We show that excitations of physical interest for the heavenly equation are generated by symmetry operators which yield two reduced equations with different characteristics. One equation is of the Liouville type and gives rise to gravitational instantons, including those found by Eguchi–Hanson and Gibbons–Hawking. The second equation appears for the first time in the theory of heavenly spaces and provides meron-like configurations endowed with a fractional topological charge. A link is also established between the heavenly equation and the so-called Schroder equation, which plays a crucial role in the bootstrap model and in renormalization theory.