Isomonodromic deformations of a rational differential system and reconstruction with the topological recursion: the $\mathfrak{sl}_2$ case

Abstract

In this paper, we show that it is always possible to deform a differential equation $\partial_x \Psi(x) = L(x) \Psi(x)$ with $L(x) \in \mathfrak{sl}_2(\mathbb{C})(x)$ by introducing a small formal parameter $\hbar$ in such a way that it satisfies the Topological Type properties of Berg\`ere, Borot and Eynard. This is obtained by including the former differential equation in an isomonodromic system and using some homogeneity conditions to introduce $\hbar$. The topological recursion is then proved to provide a formal series expansion of the corresponding tau-function whose coefficients can thus be expressed in terms of intersections of tautological classes in the Deligne-Mumford compactification of the moduli space of surfaces. We present a few examples including any Fuchsian system of $\mathfrak{sl}_2(\mathbb{C})(x)$ as well as some elements of Painlev\'e hierarchies.