We give an overview of the integrability of the Hirota-Kimura discretization method applied to algebraically completely integrable (a.c.i.) systems with quadratic vector fields. Along with the description of the basic mechanism of integrability (Hirota-Kimura bases), we provide the reader with a fairly complete list of the currently available results for concrete a.c.i. systems.Comment: 47 pages, some minor change

Abstract. We construct Miura transformations mapping the scalar spectral problems of the integrable lattice equations belonging to the Adler-Bobenko-Suris (ABS) list into the discrete Schrödinger spectral problem associated with Volterra-type equations. We show that the ABS equations correspond to Bäcklund transformations for some particular cases of the discrete Krichever-Novikov equation found by Yamilov (YdKN equation). This enables us to construct new generalized symmetries for the ABS equations. The same can be said about the generalizations of the ABS equations introduced by Tongas, Tsoubelis and Xenitidis. All of them generate Bäcklund transformations for the YdKN equation. The higher order generalized symmetries we construct in the present paper confirm their integrability.

R. Hirota and K. Kimura discovered integrable discretizations of the Euler and the Lagrange tops, given by birational maps. Their method is a specialization to the integrable context of a general discretization scheme introduced by W. Kahan and applicable to any vector field with a quadratic dependence on phase variables. According to a proposal by T. Ratiu, discretizations of the Hirota-Kimura type can be considered for numerous integrable systems of classical mechanics. Due to a remarkable and not well understood mechanism, such discretizations seem to inherit the integrability for all algebraically completely integrable systems. We introduce an experimental method for a rigorous study of integrability of such discretizations. Application of this method to the Hirota-Kimura type discretization of the Clebsch system leads to the discovery of four functionally independent integrals of motion of this discrete time system, which turn out to be much more complicated than the integrals of the continuous time system. Further, we prove that every orbit of the discrete time Clebsch system lies in an intersection of four quadrics in the six-dimensional phase space. Analogous results hold for the Hirota-Kimura type discretizations for all commuting flows of the Clebsch system, as well as for the so(4) Euler top.

This paper deals with a remarkable integrable discretization of the so(3) Euler top introduced by Hirota and Kimura. Such a discretization leads to an explicit map, whose integrability has been understood by finding two independent integrals of motion and a solution in terms of elliptic functions. Our goal is the construction of its Hamiltonian formulation. After giving a simplified and streamlined presentation of their results, we provide a bi-Hamiltonian structure for this discretization, thus proving its integrability in the standard Liouville-Arnold sense.

We propose a notion of a pluri-Lagrangian problem, which should be understood as an analogue of multidimensional consistency for variational systems. This is a development along the line of research of discrete integrable Lagrangian systems initiated in 2009 by Lobb and Nijhoff, however, having its more remote roots in the theory of pluriharmonic functions, in the Z-invariant models of statistical mechanics and their quasiclassical limit, as well as in the theory of variational symmetries going back to Noether., whose coefficients depend on a sought-after function x of m independent variables (called field), find those fields x which deliver critical points to the action functionals S Σ = Σ L for any d-dimensional manifold Σ in the multi-time. We derive the main building blocks of the multi-time Euler-Lagrange equations for a discrete pluri-Lagrangian problem with d = 2, the so-called corner equations, and discuss the notion of consistency of the system of corner equations. We analyse the system of corner equations for a special class of three-point two-forms, corresponding to integrable quad-equations of the ABS list. This allows us to close a conceptual gap of the work by Lobb and Nijhoff by showing that the corresponding two-forms are closed not only on solutions of (nonvariational) quad-equations, but also on general solutions of the corresponding corner equations. We also find an example of a pluri-Lagrangian system not coming from a multi-dimensionally consistent system of quad-equations.

We construct the 1-and 2-point integrable maps (Bäcklund transformations) for the symmetric Lagrange top. We show that the Lagrange top has the same algebraic Poisson structure that belongs to the sl(2) Gaudin magnet. The 2-point map leads to a real time-discretization of the continuous flow. Therefore, it provides an integrable numerical scheme for integrating the physical flow. We illustrate the construction by few pictures of the discrete flow calculated in MATLAB.1991 Mathematics Subject Classification. 58F07.

We perform a Inönü-Wigner contraction on Gaudin models, showing how the integrability property is preserved by this algebraic procedure. Starting from Gaudin models we obtain new integrable chains, that we call Lagrange chains, associated to the same linear r-matrix structure. We give a general construction involving rational, trigonometric and elliptic solutions of the classical Yang-Baxter equation. Two particular examples are explicitly considered: the rational Lagrange chain and the trigonometric one. In both cases local variables of the models are the generators of the direct sum of N e(3) interacting tops.

In this paper we present a set of results on the integration and on the symmetries of the lattice potential Korteweg-de Vries (lpKdV) equation. Using its associated spectral problem we construct the soliton solutions and the Lax technique enables us to provide infinite sequences of generalized symmetries. Finally, using a discrete symmetry of the lpKdV equation, we construct a large class of non-autonomous generalized symmetries.