Elementary and Liouvillian solutions of linear differential equations (Q1106886)

Let k be a differential field of characteristic 0. An element of some differential extension of k is said to be Liouvillian (resp. elementary) if it can be reached from k by a finite number of steps each of which is either to take a primitive (resp. to take the logarithm) or to take the exponential or to solve an algebraic equation. Let now \(L(y)=b\) be a linear differential equation with coefficients in k. It is shown that this equation cannot have a nonzero elementary (resp. Liouvillian) solution unless either it has a nonzero solution in k or the homogeneous equation \(L(y)=0\) has a nonzero solution u algebraic over k (resp. such that u'/u is algebraic over k). When k is a finite algebraic extension of \({\mathbb{Q}}(x)\), this result enables the authors to give an algorithm that decides if the equation \(L(y)=b\) has a Liouvillian solution and, if it does, that produces such a solution. The analogous problem for elementary solutions is also examined.