Symmetry and general symmetry groups of the coupled Kadomtsev--Petviashvili equation

In this paper, the Lie symmetry algebra of the coupled Kadomtsev--Petviashvili (cKP) equation is obtained by the classical Lie group method and this algebra is shown to have a Kac--Moody--Virasoro loop algebra structure. Then the general symmetry groups of the cKP equation is also obtained by the symmetry group direct method which is proposed by Lou et al。 From the general symmetry groups, the Lie symmetry group can be recovered and a group of discrete transformations can be derived simultaneously. Lastly, from a known simple solution of the cKP equation, we can easily obtain two new solutions by the general symmetry groups.