The non-commutative Korteweg--de Vries hierarchy and combinatorial Poppe algebra

Abstract

We give a constructive proof, to all orders, that each member of the non-commutative potential Korteweg-de Vries hierarchy is a Fredholm Grassmannian flow and is therefore linearisable. Indeed we prove this for any linear combination of fields from this hierarchy. That each member of the hierarchy is linearisable, and integrable in this sense, means that the time evolving solution can be generated from the solution to the corresponding linear dispersion equation in the hierarchy, combined with solving an associated linear Fredholm equation representing the Marchenko equation. Further, we show that within the class of polynomial partial differential fields, at every order, each member of the non-commutative potential Korteweg--de Vries hierarchy is unique. Indeed, we prove to all orders, that each such member matches the non-commutative Lax hierarchy field, which is therefore a polynomial partial differential field. We achieve this by constructing the abstract combinatorial algebra that underlies the non-commutative potential Korteweg-de Vries hierarchy. This algebra is the non-commutative polynomial algebra over the real line generated by the set of all compositions endowed with the Poppe product. This product is the abstract representation of the product rule for Hankel operators pioneered by Ch. Poppe for integrable equations such as the Sine-Gordon and Korteweg-de Vries equations. Integrability of the hierarchy members translates, in the combinatorial algebra, to proving the existence of a `Poppe polynomial' expansion for basic compositions in terms of `linear signature expansions'. Proving the existence of such Poppe polynomial expansions boils down to solving a linear algebraic problem for the expansion coefficients, which we solve constructively to all orders.