Differential transcendence criteria for second-order linear difference equations and elliptic hypergeometric functions

DOI10.5802/JEP.143MaRDI QIDQ1996823zbMATH OpenOpenAlexWikidataFDO

Authors Carlos E. Arreche, Thomas Dreyfus, J. Roques

Publication date 26 February 2021

Published in Journal de l’École polytechnique — Mathématiques (Search for Journal in Brave)

Copyright license Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International

Full work available at URL https://arxiv.org/abs/1809.05416

zbMATH Keywords

difference Galois theorydifferential algebraelliptic curveslinear difference equations

Mathematics Subject Classification ID

Differential algebra (12H05) Classical hypergeometric functions, ({}_2F_1) (33C05) Linear difference equations (39A06) Difference equations, scaling ((q)-differences) (39A13)

Abstract: We develop general criteria that ensure that any non-zero solution of a given second-order difference equation is differentially transcendental, which apply uniformly in particular cases of interest, such as shift difference equations, q-dilation difference equations, Mahler difference equations, and elliptic difference equations. These criteria are obtained as an application of differential Galois theory for difference equations. We apply our criteria to prove a new result to the effect that most elliptic hypergeometric functions are differentially transcendental.

Review text

Solutions of differential equations are one of the most famous sources of transcendental functions that play an important role in applications. Painlevé equations are a bright example. Also difference equations can serve these goals. Moreover, there are transcendental functions that cannot be obtained as solutions of differential or difference equations. The Gamma function is a classical example. In this paper, the authors show that this phenomenon is not accidental. Let \(K\) be a \(\sigma\delta\)-field, i.e., \(K\) is equipped with an automorphism \(\sigma\) and a derivation \(\delta\) such that \(\sigma\circ\delta=\delta\circ\sigma\). The main result of the paper is the following statement. Any nontrivial solution of the difference equation \[ \sigma^{2}(y)+a\sigma(y)+by=0\quad a,b\in K,b\neq0,\tag{1} \] is differentially transcendental over \(K\) if, roughly speaking, in the Galois groups of equation (1) and for the associated equation \(\sigma(y)=by\) there are enough automorphisms. Additionally, in the field \(K\), there must be enough many constants. The practical value and effectiveness of the criterion of differential transcendence proposed by the authors is illustrated ``by proving differential transcendence of `most' elliptic hypergeometric functions.

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Cited in

(8)

• Almost-simple affine difference algebraic groups
• Galois groups of difference equations of order two on elliptic curves
• Non-elementary solutions of difference equations
• Hypertranscendence and linear difference equations
• Difference-differential fields of continuous functions
• Hypertranscendence and linear difference equations, the exponential case
• On the computation of the difference Galois groups of order 3 equations
• Twisted Mahler discrete residues

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