‘flot64 AN ELIMINATION THEORY FOR DIFFERENTIAL ALGEBRA BY A, SEIDENBERG UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA PRESS BERKELEY AND LOS ANGELES 1936 Qh4s0 |UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA PUBLICATIONS IN MATHEMATICS, NEW SERIES Eprrors (BERKELEY): FRANTISEK WOLF, J. L. Honces, JR., ABRAHAM SEIDENBERG Volume 3, No. 2, pp. 81-66 Submitted by editors September 22, 1955 Issued September 10, 1956 Price, 75 cents University oF CALIFORNIA Press BeRxeiey AND Los ANGELES CALIFORNIA, = (Canpripce University PREss Lonvon, ENGLAND PRINTED IN THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICAAN ELIMINATION THEORY FOR DIFFERENTIAL ALGEBRA BY A. SEIDENBERG §1. Introduction Let K be an ordinary differential field' of arbitrary characteristic p, and let Fi, - - +, Fs, @ be elements of the polynomial ring K{U,, - - -, Us} in n differential indeterminates. In theorem 1 below, which refers to the case p = 0, we give an algorithm for deciding whether the system @ Fi=0,-++, Fe = 0,640 has a solution in some differential extension field of K. Associated with this decision method is a constructive proof of Hilbert’s Nullstellensatz (theorem 2). These results for p = 0 are especially simple and concise. The main reason for this sim- plicity is that the elimination method, in the case of characteristic 0, involves only the differential field operations of the basic field K, so that an immediate induction on the number of unknowns can be made. In the case p > 0, it is shown below by an example (in the proof of theorem 3) that the field operations are not enough, but that one must also allow the extraction of pth roots of constants. If c is a constant in K, but not a pth power, the same example shows that we can adjoin a pth root of c to K, but not uniquely. Under the assumption that every constant in K has a pth root in K, we give a decision method for (1). In this case, as also in the case p = 0, theorem 4 below gives a description of the set of solutions of (1). The same description, except for the constructive aspect, holds quite generally if one restricts oneself to the separable solutions of (1). Our theory is thus really incomplete in only one point: in the general case, no account can be taken of the inseparable solutions of (1). J. F. Ritt [8; chap. V] has considered these questions for the ease p = 0 and has successfully described the solutions of (1). His description, which he calls “construc tive,” employs not only the field operations, but also factorizations. This is a mis- leading terminology, as factorization cannot well be regarded as a constructive process: see [13]. Of course, as far as descriptions without recourse to transfinite methods are concerned, there is no criticism. This terminology has also been applied by R. Cohn [1] in saying that he has given a constructive proof of Hilbert’s Null- stellensatz, and Ritt follows him [8; p. 111]. One might suppose from this that a decision method for the existence of a solution to (1) has been given, but that is so only in a limited sense? ‘The considerations given below grew out of the observation that Hilbert’s Null- stellensatz, of ordinary algebra, is a practically trivial consequence of the existence of an elimination method, and that an examination of the details of the elimination abel differential systems are also consider + If one starts from a field K over which factorization can be effectively carried out, then the procedures of Ritt and Cohn are constructive, but this additional assumption is not necessary. [31] er was written while the author was a Guggenheim Fellow (1953-54).