In this talk, we will firstly outline Hirota’s bilinear method and the Kadomtsev-Petviashvili (KP) theory for integrable systems, i.e., a class of exactly solvable partial differential equations (PDEs). We will reveal the unified algebraic structure underlying the continuous and discrete integrable systems via showing how to generate Hirota’s bilinear equations for the whole KP hierarchy and how to prove their general solutions, the so-called tau functions. Then, we will show how the general soliton solutions to several typical soliton equations such as the KdV equation and the NLS equation can be obtained via the reduction method of the KP hierarchy.
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