On rational and hypergeometric solutions of linear ordinary difference equations in \(\Pi\Sigma^\ast\)-field extensions (Q2029003)

In this paper the authors develop an algorithmic framework to solve linear difference equations in the context of \(\Pi\Sigma^*\)-fields. That is, the coefficients of these equations are assumed to be indefinitely nested sums and products that can be represented as elements of a \(\Pi\Sigma^*\)-field. The two main results of this paper are algorithms for computing (1) hypergeometric solutions of homogeneous linear difference equations, and (2) rational solutions of parameterized (inhomogeneous) linear difference equations. These algorithms are therefore generalizations of classical algorithms (Abramov, Petkovšek, etc.). They can also be viewed as the difference analog of Singer's algorithm, based on Risch's algorithm, for finding all Liouvillian solutions of linear differential equations whose coefficients are given in terms of Liouvillian extensions.