On Periodic solutions for a reduction of Benney chain

Abstract

We study periodic solutions for a quasi-linear system, which is the so called dispersionless Lax reduction of the Benney moments chain. This question naturally arises in search of integrable Hamiltonian systems of the form $ H=p^2/2+u(q,t) $ Our main result classifies completely periodic solutions for 3 by 3 system. We prove that the only periodic solutions have the form of traveling waves, so in particular, the potential $u$ is a function of a linear combination of $t$ and $q$. This result implies that the there are no nontrivial cases of existence of the fourth power integral of motion for $H$: if it exists, then it is equal necessarily to the square of the quadratic one. Our method uses two new general observations. The first is the genuine non-linearity of the maximal and minimal eigenvalues for the system. The second observation uses the compatibility conditions of Gibonns-Tsarev in order to give certain exactness for the system in Riemann invariants. This exactness opens a possibility to apply the Lax analysis of blow up of smooth solutions, which usually does not work for systems of higher order.