A sufficient condition for a rational differential operator to generate an integrable system

S. Carpentier

Abstract: For a rational differential operator $L=AB^{-1}$, the Lenard--Magri scheme of integrability is a sequence of functions $F_n, n\geq 0$, such that (1) $B(F_{n+1})=A(F_n)$ for all $n \geq 0$ and (2) the functions $B(F_n)$ pairwise commute. We show that, assuming that property $(1)$ holds and that the set of differential orders of $B(F_n)$ is unbounded, property $(2)$ holds if and only if $L$ belongs to a class of rational operators that we call integrable. If we assume moreover that the rational operator $L$ is weakly non-local and preserves a certain splitting of the algebra of functions into even and odd parts, we show that one can always find such a sequence $(F_n)$ starting from any function in $\mathrm{Ker}\,B$. This result gives some insight in the mechanism of recursion operators, which encode the hierarchies of the corresponding integrable equations.