Differential and difference dimension polynomials

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The notion of dimension for a differential algebraic subset \(X\) of differential affine \(n\)-space over the differential field \(F\) was defined by Ellis Kolchin in terms of the degree of a certain numerical (integer valued) polynomial associated to \(X\), or more precisely associated to the ring \(S\) obtained from the ring of polynomials in \(n\) differential indeterminates \(F\{x_1, \dots, x_n\}\) modulo the prime differential ideal defining \(X\). \(F\{x_1, \dots, x_n\}\) is an ascending union of subrings generated by elements of order \(k\) or less, and \(S\) is a similar union of their images. The transcendence degrees of the quotient fields of these subalgebras of \(S\) form a sequence, and the differential dimension polynomial is the numerical polynomial whose value on each order is the corresponding transcendence degree. Such a polynomial exists, and its degree is the appropriate notion of differential dimension. If ``differential is replaced by ``difference (if the derivation(s) of \(F\) that make it a differential field are replaced by automorphism(s)), one obtains a concept of a difference dimension polynomial and of difference dimension. This book is a comprehensive account of a general theory of differential and difference dimension polynomials. While it presents a development of the differential dimension polynomial described above, which the authors term the Kolchin polynomial, it also develops the theory in the difference context and in the mixed differential-difference context. The authors make a serious and successful attempt to have the book be self contained. Of their 415 pages, they devote 221 to four chapters of preliminary matters: a chapter on algebraic preliminaries, a substantial chapter on (multivariate) numerical polynomials, a substantial chapter on basic differential and difference algebra, and a chapter on Gröbner bases. Their fifth chapter then introduces the Kolchin differential dimension polynomial and proves both the basic results noted above as well as additional refinements due to the authors. Chapter six, which is about a sixth of the book, then carries the theory forward to difference and differential-difference dimension polynomials. The seventh chapter provides applications of chapter six in differential-difference algebra, and chapter eight extends the dimension polynomial notions further to the case when in addition a commutative group \(G\) is acting. A brief chapter nine then ends the book with some computer implementable (and implemented) algorithms for computing dimension polynomials. The authors also include a 10 page bibliography of over 250 references. The authors are to be congratulated for making this important theory accessible to the general mathematical public in a single reference work. Even algebraists often have weak backgrounds in differential and difference algebra, and analysts and applied mathematicians who work with differential and difference equations usually do not have strong backgrounds in the algebraic aspects of the subject. This book should allow researchers, and graduate students, to both master the background material and to see the development of differential and difference dimension polynomial theory practically up to the research frontier.




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