Semi-Hamiltonian Properties of a Class of Non-diagonalisable Systems of Hydrodynamic Type

Abstract

We study the system of first order PDEs for pseudo-Riemannian metrics governing the Hamiltonian formalism for systems of hydrodynamic type. In the diagonal setting the integrability conditions ensure the compatibility of this system and, thanks to a classical theorem of Darboux, the existence of a family of solutions depending on functional parameters. In this paper we study the generalisation of this result to a class of non-diagonalisable systems of hydrodynamic type that naturally generalises Tsarev’s integrable diagonal systems.