Integrable Systems in n-dimensional Riemannian Geometry

Sanders, Jan A.; Wang, Jing Ping

Integrable Systems in n-dimensional Riemannian Geometry

Authors

Description

In this paper we show that if one writes down the structure equations for the evolution of a curve embedded in an (n)-dimensional Riemannian manifold with constant curvature this leads to a symplectic, a Hamiltonian and an hereditary operator. This gives us a natural connection between finite dimensional geometry, infinite dimensional geometry and integrable systems. Moreover one finds a Lax pair in (\orth{n+1}) with the vector modified Korteweg-De Vries equation (vmKDV) \[ \vk{t}= \vk{xxx}+\fr32 ||\vk{}||^2 \vk{x} \] as integrability condition. We indicate that other integrable vector evolution equations can be found by using a different Ansatz on the form of the Lax pair. We obtain these results by using the {\em natural} or {\em parallel} frame and we show how this can be gauged by a generalized Hasimoto transformation to the (usual) {\em Fren{ê}t} frame. If one chooses the curvature to be zero, as is usual in the context of integrable systems, then one loses information unless one works in the natural frame.