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Algebraic Function
Algebraic Function
Some algebraic functions, however, cannot be expressed by such finite expressions (this is
the Abel–Ruffini theorem). This is the case, for example, for the Bring radical, which is the
function implicitly defined by
.
In more precise terms, an algebraic function of degree n in one variable x is a function that
is continuous in its domain and satisfies a polynomial equation
where the coefficients ai(x) are polynomial functions of x, with integer coefficients. It can be
shown that the same class of functions is obtained if algebraic numbers are accepted for the
coefficients of the ai(x)'s. If transcendental numbers occur in the coefficients the function is, in
general, not algebraic, but it is algebraic over the field generated by these coefficients.
The value of an algebraic function at a rational number, and more generally, at an algebraic
number is always an algebraic number. Sometimes, coefficients that are polynomial over
a ring R are considered, and one then talks about "functions algebraic over R".
A function which is not algebraic is called a transcendental function, as it is for example the case
of . A composition of transcendental functions can give an algebraic function: .
As a polynomial equation of degree n has up to n roots (and exactly n roots over an algebraically
closed field, such as the complex numbers), a polynomial equation does not implicitly define a
single function, but up to n functions, sometimes also called branches. Consider for example the
equation of the unit circle: This determines y, except only up to an overall sign; accordingly, it
has two branches:
An algebraic function in m variables is similarly defined as a function which solves a
polynomial equation in m + 1 variables:
It is normally assumed that p should be an irreducible polynomial. The existence of an
algebraic function is then guaranteed by the implicit function theorem.
Formally, an algebraic function in m variables over the field K is an element of the algebraic
closure of the field of rational functions K(x1, ..., xm).
Monodromy[edit]
Note that the foregoing proof of analyticity derived an expression
for a system of n different function elements fi (x), provided
that x is not a critical point of p(x, y). A critical point is a point
where the number of distinct zeros is smaller than the degree of p,
and this occurs only where the highest degree term of p vanishes,
and where the discriminant vanishes. Hence there are only finitely
many such points c1, ..., cm.
A close analysis of the properties of the function elements fi near
the critical points can be used to show that the monodromy
cover is ramified over the critical points (and possibly the point at
infinity). Thus the holomorphic extension of the fi has at worst
algebraic poles and ordinary algebraic branchings over the critical
points.
Note that, away from the critical points, we have
since the fi are by definition the distinct zeros of p.
The monodromy group acts by permuting the factors, and
thus forms the monodromy representation of the Galois
group of p. (The monodromy action on the universal covering
space is related but different notion in the theory of Riemann
surfaces.)
History[edit]
The ideas surrounding algebraic functions go back at least as
far as René Descartes. The first discussion of algebraic
functions appears to have been in Edward Waring's 1794 An
Essay on the Principles of Human Knowledge in which he
writes:
let a quantity denoting the ordinate, be an algebraic function of the abscissa x, by the common
methods of division and extraction of roots, reduce it into an infinite series ascending or
descending according to the dimensions of x, and then find the integral of each of