Properties of an Alternate Lax Description of the KdV Hierarchy

Abstract

We study systematically the Lax description of the KdV hierarchy in terms of an operator which is the geometrical recursion operator. We formulate the Lax equation for the $n$-th flow, construct the Hamiltonians which lead to commuting flows. In this formulation, the recursion relation between the conserved quantities follows naturally. We give a simple and compact definition of all the Hamiltonian structures of the theory which are related through a power law.