Algorithms and methods in differential algebra (Q1365683)

The first three sections provide a rather superficial survey of Risch theory, i.e., solving \(y'=f\) by elementary functions, and symbolically solving linear \(n\)th order differential equations. The sections 4 and 5 give a survey of problems related to polynomial vector fields \(V=V_x\partial_x+V_y\partial_y+V_z\partial_z\), with \(V_x,V_y,V_z\in\mathbb{C}[x,y,z]\) homogeneous forms of the same degree \(m\). A homogeneous \(f\neq 0\) of degree 0, i.e., \((x\partial_x+\partial_yy+\partial_zz)f=0\), is called a first integral if \(Vf=0\) and \(f\) is Liouvillian over the differential field \(\mathbb{C}(x,y,z)\). A first result is the translation of the existence of a first integral into the existence of a polynomial 1-form \(\omega=\omega_xdx+\omega_ydy+\omega_zdz\) having certain properties. Closely related is the notion of Darboux function \(f\) (or Darboux curve if \(f\) is irreducible). This is a homogeneous polynomial such that \(Vf=\Lambda f\) for some homogeneous polynomial \(\Lambda\). A result of Jouanolou states that a generic polynomial vector field of degree \(m\geq 2\) has no Darboux curves and as a consequence has no first integral. The last section of the paper studies those problems in detail for the vector field \((Cy+z)x\partial_x+(Az+x)y\partial_y+(Bx+y)z\partial_z\), where \(A,B,C\) are constants.