Hyperdeterminants as integrable discrete systems

Abstract

We give the basic definitions and some theoretical results about hyperdeterminants, introduced by A. Cayley in 1845. We prove integrability (understood as 4d-consistency) of a nonlinear difference equation defined by the 2x2x2-hyperdeterminant. This result gives rise to the following hypothesis: the difference equations defined by hyperdeterminants of any size are integrable. We show that this hypothesis already fails in the case of the 2x2x2x2-hyperdeterminant.