Galois theory and algorithms for linear differential equations (Q2456554)

The paper under review is a survey of recent work in differential Galois theory, including explicit results, algorithms and applications. After an informal introduction to the general theory, the author focuses on the direct problem of the computation of the Picard-Vessiot ring and the differential group of a given differential equation, and on the inverse problem: given a linear algebraic group \(G\) and a faithful representation \(W\) of \(G\), does there exist a differential equation such that the action of its Galois group on the solution space is isomorphic to the \(G\)-module \(W\). Several theoretical and explicit methods and results are presented.