Tau functions associated to pseudodifferential operators of several variables

Abstract

Pseudodifferential operators of several variables are formal Laurent series in the formal inverses of $\partial_1, ..., \partial_n$ with $\partial_i = d$ $1 \leq i \leq n$. As in the single variable case, Lax equations can be constructed using such pseudodifferential operators, whose solutions can be provided by Baker functions. We extend the usual notion of tau functions to the case of pseudodifferential operators of several variables so that each Baker function can be expressed in terms of the corresponding tau function.