Partial differential equations from matrices with orthogonal columns

We discuss a system of third order PDEs for strictly convex smooth functions on domains of Euclidean space. We argue that it may be understood as a closure of sorts of the first order prolongation of a family of second order PDEs. We describe explicitly its real analytic solutions and all the solutions which satisfy a genericity condition; we also describe a family of non-generic solutions which has an application to Poisson geometry and Kahler structures on toric varieties. Our methods are geometric: we use the theory of Hessian metrics and symmetric spaces to link the analysis of the system of PDEs with properties of the manifold of matrices with orthogonal columns.