We study the extension of integrable equations which possess the Lax representations to noncommutative spaces. We construct various noncommutative Lax equations by the Lax-pair generating technique and the Sato theory. The Sato theory has revealed essential aspects of the integrability of commutative soliton equations and the noncommutative extension is worth studying. We succeed in deriving various noncommutative hierarchy equations in the framework of the Sato theory, which is brand-new. The existence of the hierarchy would suggest a hidden infinite-dimensional symmetry in the noncommutative Lax equations. We finally show that a noncommutative version of Burgers equation is completely integrable because it is linearizable via noncommutative Cole-Hopf transformation. These results are expected to lead to the completion of the noncommutative Sato theory.

We present a noncommutative version of the Burgers equation which possesses the Lax representation and discuss the integrability in detail. We find a noncommutative version of the Cole-Hopf transformation and succeed in the linearization of it. The linearized equation is the (noncommutative) diffusion equation and exactly solved. We also discuss the properties of some exact solutions. The result shows that the noncommutative Burgers equation is completely integrable even though it contains infinite number of time derivatives. Furthermore, we derive the noncommutative Burgers equation from the noncommutative (anti-)self-dual Yang-Mills equation by reduction, which is an evidence for the noncommutative Ward conjecture. Finally, we present a noncommutative version of the Burgers hierarchy by both the Lax-pair generating technique and the Sato's approach.

We discuss commuting flows and conservation laws for Lax hierarchies on noncommutative spaces in the framework of the Sato theory. On commutative spaces, the Sato theory has revealed essential aspects of the integrability for wide class of soliton equations which are derived from the Lax hierarchies in terms of pseudo-differential operators. Noncommutative extension of the Sato theory has been already studied by the author and Kouichi Toda, and the existence of various noncommutative Lax hierarchies are guaranteed. In this paper, we present conservation laws for the noncommutative Lax hierarchies with both space-space and space-time noncommutativities and prove the existence of infinite number of conserved densities. We also give the explicit representations of them in terms of Lax operators. Our results include noncommutative versions of KP, KdV, Boussinesq, coupled KdV, Sawada-Kotera, modified KdV equations and so on.

We review recent developments of soliton theories and integrable systems on noncommutative spaces. The former part is a brief review of noncommutative gauge theories focusing on ADHM construction of noncommutative instantons. The latter part is a report on recent results of existence of infinite conserved densities and exact multi-soliton solutions for noncommutative Gelfand-Dickey hierarchies. Some examples of noncommutative Ward's conjecture are also presented. Finally, we discuss future directions on noncommutative Sato's theories and twistor theories.

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