On N-wave type systems and their gauge equivalent

The class of nonlinear evolution equations - gauge equivalent to the N-wave equations related to the simple Lie algebra g are derived and analyzed. They are written in terms of the functions S(x,t) satisfying r= rank g nonlinear constraints. The corresponding Lax pairs and the time evolution of the scattering data are found. The Zakharov-Shabat dressing method is appropriately modified to construct their soliton solutions.