Motion of curves and surfaces and nonlinear evolution equations in (2+1) dimensions

Abstract

It is shown that a class of important integrable nonlinear evolution equations in (2+1) dimensions can be associated with the motion of space curves endowed with an extra spatial variable or equivalently, moving surfaces. Geometrical invariants then define topological conserved quantities. Underlying evolution equations are shown to be associated with a triad of linear equations. Our examples include Ishimori equation and Myrzakulov equations which are shown to be geometrically equivalent to Davey-Stewartson and Zakharov-Strachan (2+1) dimensional nonlinear Schrodinger equations, respectively.