Dispersionless Toda hierarchy and two-dimensional string theory

The dispersionless Toda hierarchy turns out to lie in the heart of a recently proposed Landau-Ginzburg formulation of two-dimensional string theory at self-dual compactification radius. The dynamics of massless tachyons with discrete momenta is shown to be encoded into the structure of a special solution of this integrable hierarchy. This solution is obtained by solving a Riemann-Hilbert problem. Equivalence to the tachyon dynamics is proven by deriving recursion relations of tachyon correlation functions in the machinery of the dispersionless Toda hierarchy. Fundamental ingredients of the Landau-Ginzburg formulation, such as Landau-Ginzburg potentials and tachyon Landau-Ginzburg fields, are translated into the language of the Lax formalism. Furthermore, a wedge algebra is pointed out to exist behind the Riemann-Hilbert problem, and speculations on its possible role as generators of ``extra'' states and fields are presented.Comment: LaTeX 21 pages, KUCP-0067 (typos are corrected and a brief note is added

Non-degenerate solutions of universal Whitham hierarchy

The notion of non-degenerate solutions for the dispersionless Toda hierarchy is generalized to the universal Whitham hierarchy of genus zero with $M+1$ marked points. These solutions are characterized by a Riemann-Hilbert problem (generalized string equations) with respect to two-dimensional canonical transformations, and may be thought of as a kind of general solutions of the hierarchy. The Riemann-Hilbert problem contains $M$ arbitrary functions $H_a(z_0,z_a)$, $a = 1,...,M$, which play the role of generating functions of two-dimensional canonical transformations. The solution of the Riemann-Hilbert problem is described by period maps on the space of $(M+1)$-tuples $(z_\alpha(p) : \alpha = 0,1,...,M)$ of conformal maps from $M$ disks of the Riemann sphere and their complements to the Riemann sphere. The period maps are defined by an infinite number of contour integrals that generalize the notion of harmonic moments. The $F$-function (free energy) of these solutions is also shown to have a contour integral representation.Comment: latex2e, using amsmath, amssym and amsthm packages, 32 pages, no figur

qq-analogue of modified KP hierarchy and its quasi-classical limit

A $q$-analogue of the tau function of the modified KP hierarchy is defined by a change of independent variables. This tau function satisfies a system of bilinear $q$-difference equations. These bilinear equations are translated to the language of wave functions, which turn out to satisfy a system of linear $q$-difference equations. These linear $q$-difference equations are used to formulate the Lax formalism and the description of quasi-classical limit. These results can be generalized to a $q$-analogue of the Toda hierarchy. The results on the $q$-analogue of the Toda hierarchy might have an application to the random partition calculus in gauge theories and topological strings.Comment: latex2e, a4 paper 15 pages, no figure; (v2) a few references are adde