Coisotropic deformations of associative algebras and dispersionless integrable hierarchies

The paper is an inquiry of the algebraic foundations of the theory of dispersionless integrable hierarchies, like the dispersionless KP and modified KP hierarchies and the universal Whitham hierarchy of genus zero. It stands out for the idea of interpreting these hierarchies as equations of coisotropic deformations for the structure constants of certain associative algebras. It discusses the link between the structure constants and Hirota's tau function, and shows that the dispersionless Hirota bilinear equations are, within this approach, a way of writing the associativity conditions for the structure constants in terms of the tau function. It also suggests a simple interpretation of the algebro-geometric construction of the universal Whitham equations of genus zero due to Krichever. © 2007 Springer-Verlag.