No label defined (Q4237622)

This book reprints all the published research papers of Ellis Kolchin, as well as some non-archival publications (such as distributed lecture notes), and publishes for the first time a short paper on Painlevé transcendents. In additition to his published papers, Kolchin presented his results in definitive form in two major research monographs \textit{Differential Algebra and Algebraic Groups} and \textit{Differential Algebraic Groups} not reprinted in this volume. These books, which provide a comprehensive account of Kolchin's work through the mid 1980's, demand of the reader a commitment to serious study. The original papers may in fact be a more accessible approach to the work, at least as far as the basic results in differential Galois theory, differential closures of fields, and differential dimension of differential algebraic varieties. The volume also contains a nearly 130 page section of commentary, consisting of four expository articles. Taken together, these probably comprise the best introduction and survey of differential algebra currently available. The first, by \textit{A. Borel}, is on \textit{Algebraic groups and Galois theory in the work of Ellis R. Kolchin}. Borel explains Kolchin's interest in and work on the theory of algebraic groups over arbitrary fields. He also gives an excellent summary of Kolchin's Galois theory, both the Picard -- Vessiot case and the far more complicated general strongly normal case. (The complications come about from the need to consider isomorphisms of the extension \(E \supset F\) into some universal differential field \(U \supset F\) containing \(E\); ``universal'' means that all finitely generated differential field extensions of differential subfields of \(U\) finitely generated over \(F\) embed in \(U\).) The second of the expository papers is by \textit{M. Singer} and covers \textit{Direct and inverse problems in differential Galois theory}. Singer surveys the direct and inverse problems of [Picard-Vessiot] differential Galois theory: ``direct'' means ``given a linear homogeneous differential equation, determine the corresponding linear algebraic differential algebraic group''; ``inverse'' means ``given a linear algebraic group, find a differential equation with that group as differential Galois group''. The third commentary paper, entitled \textit{Les corps différentiellement clos, compagnons de route de la théorie des modèles} is by \textit{B. Poizat}; this covers the concepts of ``differentially closed'' field and of ``differential closure'', which arise naturally in the context of universal differential field, and which have proved fruitful in logic and model theory as well. The final expository paper, by \textit{A. Buium} and \textit{P. Cassidy}, covers, as its title says \textit{Differential algebraic geometry and differential algebraic groups: From algebraic differential equations to Diophantine geometry}. It provides a much -- needed accessible account of this important part of differential algebra and its applications. Collectively, the bibliographies of the expository papers cover about 130 items, and provide a good overview of the current status of the subject of differential algebra. The editors of this volume, and the authors of the articles in the Commentary section, are to be congratulated on not only making the publications of Ellis Kolchin readily available in a single volume format, but also for providing a set of excellent expository articles which will allow newcomers to the field to learn about the main themes in Kolchin's work in differential algebra and to see how those topics have developed mathematically up to the present day.