Perturbative analysis of the colored Alexander polynomial and KP soliton $τ$-functions

Abstract: In this paper we study the group theoretic structures of colored HOMFLY polynomials in a specific limit. The group structures arise in the perturbative expansion of $SU(N)$ Chern-Simons Wilson loops, while the limit is $N \rightarrow 0$. The result of the paper is twofold. First, we explain the emergence of Kadomsev-Petviashvily (KP) $\tau$-functions. This result is an extension of what we did in arXiv:1805.02761, where a symbolic correspondence between KP equations and group factors was established. In this paper we prove that integrability of the colored Alexander polynomial is due to it's relation to soliton $\tau$-functions. Mainly, the colored Alexander polynomial is embedded in the action of the KP generating function on the soliton $\tau$-function. Secondly, we use this correspondence to provide a rather simple combinatoric description of the group factors in term of Young diagrams, which is otherwise described in terms of chord diagrams, where no simple description is known. This is a first step providing an explicit description of the group theoretic data of Wilson loops, which would effectively reduce them to a purely topological quantity, mainly to a collection of Vassiliev invariants.