Solvable vector nonlinear Riemann problems, exact implicit solutions of dispersionless PDEs and wave breaking

We have recently solved the inverse spectral problem for integrable partial differential equations (PDEs) in arbitrary dimensions arising as commutation of multidimensional vector fields depending on a spectral parameter λ. The associated inverse problem, in particular, can be formulated as a nonlinear Riemann-Hilbert (NRH) problem on a given contour of the complex λ plane. The most distinguished examples of integrable PDEs of this type, like the dispersionless Kadomtsev-Petviashivili (dKP), the heavenly and the two-dimensional dispersionless Toda equations, are real PDEs associated with Hamiltonian vector fields. The corresponding NRH data satisfy suitable reality and symplectic constraints. In this paper, generalizing the examples of solvable NRH problems illustrated in Manakov and Santini (2009 J. Phys. A: Math. Theor. 42 095203; 2008 J. Phys. A: Math. Theor. 41 055204; 2009 J. Phys. A: Math. Theor. 42 404013), we present a general procedure to construct solvable NRH problems for integrable real PDEs associated with Hamiltonian vector fields, allowing one to construct exact implicit solutions of such PDEs parametrized by an arbitrary number of real functions of a single variable. Then, we illustrate this theory on few distinguished examples for the dKP and heavenly equations. For the dKP case, we characterize a class of similarity solutions, of solutions constant on their parabolic wave front and breaking simultaneously on it, of localized solutions whose breaking point travels with constant speed along the wave front, and of localized solutions breaking in a point of the (x, y) plane. For the heavenly equation, we characterize two classes of symmetry reductions. © 2011 IOP Publishing Ltd.