With T. Nevins. D-bundles and integrable
hierarchies.
We study the geometry of D-bundles--locally projective D-modules--on
algebraic curves, and apply them to the study of integrable
hierarchies, specifically the multicomponent Kadomtsev-Petviashvili
(KP) and spin Calogero-Moser (CM) hierarchies. We show that KP
hierarchies have a geometric description as flows on moduli spaces
of D-bundles; in particular, we prove that the local structure of
D-bundles is captured by the full Sato Grassmannian. The rational,
trigonometric, and elliptic solutions of KP are therefore captured
by D-bundles on cubic curves E, that is, irreducible (smooth, nodal,
or cuspidal) curves of arithmetic genus 1. We develop a
Fourier-Mukai transform describing D-modules on cubic curves E in
terms of (complexes of) sheaves on a twisted cotangent bundle over
E. We then apply this transform to classify D-bundles on cubic
curves, identifying their moduli spaces with phase spaces of general
CM particle systems (realized through the geometry of spectral
curves in our twisted cotangent bundle). Moreover, it is immediate
from the geometric construction that the flows of the KP and CM
hierarchies are thereby identified and that the poles of the KP
solutions are identified with the positions of the CM particles.
This provides a geometric explanation of a much-explored, puzzling
phenomenon of the theory of integrable systems: the poles of
meromorphic solutions to KP soliton equations move according to CM
particle systems.