Cauchy problem on the plane for the dispersionless Kadomtsev-Petviashvili equation.

We construct the formal solution to the Cauchy problem for the dispersionless Kadomtsev-Petviashvili equation as an application of the inverse scattering transform for the vector field corresponding to a Newtonian particle in a time-dependent potential. This is in full analogy with the Cauchy problem for the Kadomtsev-Petviashvili equation, associated with the inverse scattering transform of the time-dependent Schrödinger operator for a quantum particle in a time-dependent potential. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]