The Inverse Scattering Method and Systems of Equations qxy = F(q,qy)

Consider equations of the form where q is in general a complex vector and the function F depends nontrivially both on q and on q_y. We show that a family S of such equations can be investigated by the inverse scattering method. If an equation (*) belongs to S, the function F depends linearly on q and algebraically on q_y. We show that the family S contains a subfamily in which each equation can be obtained from the two dimensional Toda lattice equations by a Bäcklund transformation.