1. Introduction
Different formulations can be chosen to represent the Toda equation. In the original work of 1967 [
1], the vibration of a uniform chain of particles with nonlinear interaction was studied, and Toda considered the following equation for the 
n-th particle in the chain:
      where 
m stands for the mass of the particles, and 
 is the interaction energy between adjacent particles. Some solutions were constructed for particular interactions 
.
The same equation was considered with 
 by Date and Tanaka in 1976 [
2], and they constructed some general solutions but in terms of integrals that are difficult to use.
In the appendix of the paper of Dubrovin [
3], published in 1981, Krichever considered the non-abelian version of this equation and provided solutions in terms of the theta function on Riemann surfaces.
In 1995, Matveev and Stahlhoffen [
4] considered the following version of the Toda equation:
They used the Darboux transformation to contruct solutions to this equation in terms of Casoratis.
In 2014, Zhang and Zhou [
5] used the following representation of the Toda equation
      
They used the generalization of the exp-function to contruct multiwave solutions to this equation.
More recently, Sun, Ma, and Yu [
5] examined the following representation of the Toda equation:
They used a logarithmic transformation to obtain some particular solutions in terms of logarithms.
In 2020, Duarte [
6] considered the following representation of the Toda equation:
He used a particular ansatz combined with the properties of Laplace’s equation to contruct some solutions in terms of trigonometric functions.
Also in 2020, Schiebold and Nilson [
7] studied another version of the Toda equation in the form
      
They constructed solutions in the frame of linear algebra by means of determinants.
Here, we consider the Toda equation in the following representation [
8,
9,
10,
11]:
      with
      
      where 
 is the classical Riemann theta function.
We know that the degeneracy of the solutions to PDEs given in terms of Riemann theta functions provides some important particular solutions. In the case of the NLS equation, we have managed to construct a quasi-rational solution involving the determinant of order 
N for each positive integer 
N depending on 
 real parameters [
12]. In the case of the KdV equation, we constructed solutions in terms of Fredholm determinants and Wronskians [
13], from Baker–Akhiezer functions.
In this study, we recovered Sato formulas for the Toda equation using this method.
From finite gap solutions given in terms of Riemann theta functions, we constructed some quasi-rational solutions and recovered the Sato formulas, using degeneracy, as given in the frame of the NLS equation [
14].
Precisely, we derived multisoliton solutions from finite gap solutions by a limit transition, i.e., by making gaps tend toward points in a certain Riemann surface. This was accomplished in the spirit of [
14] or more recently [
13]. One strength of this approach is that it does not rely on inverse scattering theory or geometric and representation theoretic methods, which offers a fresh perspective on the problem.
We consider the Riemann surface 
 represented by 
 of the algebraic curve defined by [
8,
9]
      
      with 
, 
.
Let us consider 
 and 
 [
11] abelian integrals, verifying
      
      with the following asymptotic behavior for 
 [
11],
      
The vectors 
, 
D, 
X, and 
Z are defined by
      
      where 
K is the vector of Riemann constants.
 is the classical abelian integral .
The solutions to the system (6) can be written [
10,
11] as
      
      with
      
  2. Degeneracy of Solutions
Let us suppose that  are real,  if , and try to evaluate the limits of all objects in Formula (16) when ,  tends to , , , for .
As in the previous section, 
 is constructed from the matrix of the B-periods of the surface 
, the coefficients 
 are related with abelian differentials 
 by
      
      and the coefficients 
 can be obtained by solving the system of linear equations
      
In the remainder of this article, we use the following notations:
  2.1. Limit of 
Now, we study the limit of .
The limit of 
 is obviously equal to 
 or, with (19),
        
  2.2. Limit of 
Now, we study the limit of .
The limit of 
 is equal to 
, where 
. The normalization condition takes the form in the limit
        
        which proves that the numbers 
, 
 are the zeros of the polynomials 
; hence, 
 can be written as 
.
By (21), we obtain in the limit
        
Moreover,
        
        in other words,
        
        and with (19),
        
  2.3. Limit of 
The subject of this subsection is the study of the limit of .
The integral 
I can be easily evaluated along the real axis on the upper sheet of surface 
, and we obtain
        
        or with the previous notations (19),
        
So,  tends to .
Moreover, we have
        
        or with the previous notations (19),
        
  2.4. Limit of 
In this subsection, we study the limit of .
 is an abelian integral of the second kind satisfying the conditions
        
        such that
        
The limit of  is equal to , where .
For 
, satisfying the condition 
 when 
, we have 
. Moreover, the conditions
        
        prove that 
 are the zeros of 
; thus, 
.
We have that 
 tends to 
, and we obtain
        
 tends to
        
This can be evaluated, and it gives
        
With the notations defined in (19), it can be rewritten as
        
  2.5. Limit of 
We consider , and we study its limit.
 is an abelian integral of the third kind satisfying the conditions
        
        such that
        
The limit of 
 is equal to
        
 satisfies the condition , and when , we have .
Moreover, the conditions
        
        prove that 
 are the zeros of 
; thus, 
, defined by 
, can be written as 
.
As 
 tends to 
, we obtain
        
        and 
 tends to 
.
This can be calculated, and it gives
        
It can be written with (19) as
        
  2.6. Limit of X
We deduce the limit of X.
From the previous sections,
        
As 
K is defined by 
, and 
, we can write
        
  2.7. Limit of , ,
D and Z
In this subsection, we study the limit of , , D, and Z.
From the previous sections, it is easy to obtain the limits of 
 as
        
        or
        
Therefore, the limit of 
 is given by
        
  2.8. Limit of 
In this paragraph, the limit of  is studied.
 is defined in (13).
We have .
As in the determination of the limit of 
, we have
        
  2.9. Limit of 
We determine the limit of .
Let us denote A as the argument of .
A can be rewritten in the form
        
 Using the inequality  for all  and the fact that  tends to , we can reduce the limit  of  to a finite sum taken over vectors , such that each  must be equal to 0 or 1.
In this section, we compute the limit of all the terms in the expression of the solution  in . We denote  as the arguments of these different expressions.
We first study the terms of  corresponding to the arguments , , , .
Then, we study the remaining terms of  corresponding to the arguments , .
With these notations, the solution 
 can be written as
        
  2.10. Limit of 
We denote  as the term .
We study its limit.
Then, 
:
  2.11. Limit of 
We consider . We study its limit.
Then, 
. As 
, it is easy to see that
        
  2.12. Limit of 
Let  be . We study its limit.
Then, 
:
  2.13. Limit of 
We consider ; . We determine its limit.
As 
, it is easy to verify that
        
  2.14. Limit of 
The term  tends to .
We determine its limit.
Then, 
:
  2.15. Limit of 
The term  tends to .
Then, we determine its limit. 
:
  2.16. Limit of Solutions 
From the previous section, we can give the limit 
 of 
. It takes the following form:
In the previous expression, , , and  are independent of n and t.
Only , , and  depend on n and t.
We choose the particular case in which .
We replace n by x.
We denote 
c as the coefficient defined by
        
We denote 
H as the function defined by
        
In the different sums involving 
, only terms with 
 remain. So, the sums can be reduced only on the subsets 
J of 
 of integer 
. We denote 
 as the term 
. Then, the term 
 can be written as
        
We denote 
 as the function defined by
        
Thus, the solution 
 can be written as
        
Here, we return to the Sato formulation of the solution, as given in [
15].
This expression is very similar to the solution expressed on page 5830, and the expression of the solution is given by
        
The difference between these two statements comes from the fact that these two equations are treated differently:
Van Diejen considers the equation
        
        here, we consider (
1)
        
  2.17. Limit of the Associated Potentials
In this subsection, we determine the limit of the associated potentials.
The potentials 
 and 
 are described in (6) and (7) as
        
So, the limit of 
 is equal to
        
        which is the same as in [
15] (p. 5830), up to the constant 
.
Denoting 
, the limit of 
 is equal to
        
        which is similar to the one written in [
15] (p. 5830), up to the constant 
.
  3. Conclusions
We have used the degeneracy of solutions of some PDEs given in terms of Riemann theta functions to obtain some important solutions. In particular, in the case of the NLS equation, we have managed to construct a quasi-rational solution involving the determinant of order 
N for each positive integer 
N depending on 
 real parameters [
12]. In the case of the KdV equation, from abelian functions, we constructed solutions in terms of the Fredholm determinants and Wronskians [
13].
In this study, we have managed to recover Sato formulas using this method for the Toda equation. From solutions given in terms of the Baker–Akiezer functions, we succeeded to construct by degeneracy, as given in the frame of the NLS equation [
14], some quasi-rational solutions, and we recovered the Sato formulas for the Toda equation.
Precisely, we derived multisoliton solutions from finite gap solutions by a limit transition, i.e., by making gaps tend toward points in a certain Riemann surface. One strength of this approach is that it does not rely on inverse scattering theory or geometric and representation theoretic methods, which offers another perspective on the problem.
The degeneracy of the solutions to the NLS equation has allowed building new quasi-rational solutions of order N depending on  real parameters and their construction up to order 23, which were previously unknown. In the case of the KdV equation, the degeneracy of the solutions made it possible to find the solutions given by the Darboux method, which constituted a bridge between the geometric algebra approach and the Darboux transformations framework. In this article, this is somewhat the same situation as that of the KdV equation, where we linked the algebro–geometric approach to the framework of the inverse scattering method.