Lax Pairs for Edge-constrained Boussinesq Systems of Partial Difference Equations

Abstract: The method due to Nijhoff and Bobenko & Suris to derive Lax pairs for partial difference equations (PDeltaEs) is applied to edge constrained Boussinesq systems. These systems are defined on a quadrilateral. They are consistent around the cube but they contain equations defined on the edges of the quadrilateral. By properly incorporating the edge equations into the algorithm, it is straightforward to derive Lax matrices of minimal size. The 3 by 3 Lax matrices thus obtained are not unique but shown to be gauge-equivalent. The gauge matrices connecting the various Lax matrices are presented. It is also shown that each of the Boussinesq systems admits a 4 by 4 Lax matrix. For each system, the gauge-like transformations between Lax matrices of different sizes are explicitly given. To illustrate the analogy between continuous and lattice systems, the concept of gauge-equivalence of Lax pairs of nonlinear partial differential equations is briefly discussed. The method to find Lax pairs of PDeltaEs is algorithmic and is being implemented in Mathematica. The Lax pair computations for this chapter helped further improve and extend the capabilities of the software under development.