Reduced Trilinear Reformulation of the Nakamura Conjecture

The Tomimatsu--Sato (TS) family, characterized by the rotation parameter $q$ and the TS index $\delta=n,$ provides an important class of exact stationary axisymmetric vacuum solutions of Einstein's equations, whose integrable structure is known to be closely related to the $n$-point Toda molecule hierarchy through the Nakamura Conjecture. However, the set of equations appearing in the Nakamura Conjecture contains not only Hirota bilinear derivatives but also ordinary first-derivative terms, and therefore is not formulated entirely within the conventional bilinear algebra. In this paper we introduce a reduced trilinear formulation based on the reduced sector $(a,b,c)\rightarrow(a,b,1)$ of the $Z_3$-symmetric trilinear Hirota operators. We show that both the Hirota bilinear derivatives and the ordinary derivatives appearing in the Nakamura Conjecture can be rewritten completely within this reduced trilinear framework. Consequently, the set of equations admits a formulation in terms of reduced trilinear operators. We further show that the reduced trilinear formulation naturally inherits a Hirota-type direct method. The conventional bilinear spectral factor $k_i-k_j$ is replaced by the $Z_3$-weighted combinations $k_i+\omega k_j$ and $k_i+\omega^2k_j$, providing a direct-method structure characteristic of the reduced trilinear hierarchy. These results suggest that the Toda-molecule description of the Tomimatsu--Sato hierarchy may be viewed as a reduced sector of a broader trilinear framework, and provide a new perspective on the integrable structure of stationary axisymmetric gravity.