Linear integral equations and nonlinear difference-difference equations

In this paper we present a systematic method to obtain various integrable nonlinear difference-difference equations and the associated linear integral equations from which their solutions can be inferred. It is argued that these difference-difference equations can be regarded as arising from Bianchi identities expressing the commutativity of Bäcklund transformations. Applying an appropriate continuum limit we first obtain integrable nonlinear differential-difference equations together with the associated linear integral equations and after a second continuum limit we can obtain the corresponding integrable nonlinear partial differential equations and their linear integral equations. As special cases we treat the difference-difference versions and the differential-difference versions of the Korteweg-de Vries equation, the modified Korteweg-de Vries equation, the nonlinear Schrödinger equation, the isotropic classical Heisenberg spin chain, and the complex and real sine-Gordon equation.