Deformation of surfaces, integrable systems and Self-Dual Yang-Mills equation

Abstract

We conjecture that many (maybe all) integrable equations and spin systems in 2+1 dimensions can be obtained from the (2+1)-dimensional Gauss-Mainardi-Codazzi and Gauss-Weingarten equations, respectively. We also show that the (2+1)-dimensional Gauss-Mainardi-Codazzi equation which describes the deformation (motion) of surfaces is the exact reduction of the Yang-Mills-Higgs-Bogomolny and Self-Dual Yang-Mills equations. On the basis of this observation, we suggest that the (2+1)-dimensional Gauss-Mainardi-Codazzi equation is a candidate to be integrable and the associated linear problem (Lax representation) with the spectral parameter is presented.