Elementary introduction to discrete soliton equations

Abstract: We will give a short introduction to discrete or lattice soliton equations, with the particular example of the Korteweg-de Vries as illustration. We will discuss briefly how B\"acklund transformations lead to equations that can be interpreted as discrete equations on a $\mathbb Z^2$ lattice. Hierarchies of equations and commuting flows are shown to be related to multidimensionality in the lattice context, and multidimensional consistency is one of the necessary conditions for integrability. The multidimensional setting also allows one to construct a Lax pair and a B\"acklund transformation, which in turn leads to a method of constructing soliton solutions. The relationship between continuous and discrete equations is discussed from two directions: taking the continuum limit of a discrete equation and discretizing a continuous equation following the method of Hirota.