Towards an effective version of a theorem of Stafford (Q5960301)

The main purpose of this paper is to give a modified proof of Stafford's theorem: every left ideal of partial differential operators with rational or even polynomial coefficients in \(n\) variables can be generated by only two elements. To prove this the authors give an algorithmic procedure to find rather simply structured operators \(\lambda\) and \(\mu\) such that the ideal \((a,b,c)\) is generated by \(a+\lambda c\) and \(b+\mu c\). Their approach can make Stafford's original one more effective. Their proof does not give complexity bounds but it will become obvious that the procedures will break down rapidly when increasing the degrees of the operator polynomials. Moreover, if the differential operators have their coefficients from an effective function field (e.g. rational number field), one can compute two generators as stated in Stafford's theorem in finitely many steps.