Abstract for the talk at 11.05.1999 (16:45 h)

Niky Kamran (McGill University, Montreal)

Geometric integrability for non-linear second-order hyperbolic partial differential equations in the plane

Abstract: We will define a notion of geometric integrability for non-linear second-order hyperbolic partial differential equations in the plane which is based on the behaviour of the characteristic systems. We will then see how to characterize the geometrically integrable equations in terms of their conservation laws through the cohomology of the corresponding constrained variational bi-complex.