Galois theory of aigebraic and differential equations

Abstract

This paper will be the first part of our works on differential Galois theory which we plan to write. Our goal is to establish a Galois Theory of ordinary differential equations. The theory is infinite dimensional by nature and has a long history. The pioneer of this field is S. Lie who tried to apply the idea of Abel and Galois to differential equations. Picard [P] realized Galois Theory of linear ordinary differential equations, which is called nowadays Picard-Vessiot Theory. Picard-Vessiot Theory is finite dimensional and the Galois group is a linear algebraic group. The first attempt of Galois theory of a general ordinary differential equations which is infinite dimensional, is done by the thesis of Drach [D]. He replaced an ordinary differential equation by a linear partial differential equation satisfied by the first integrals and looked for a Galois Theory of linear partial differential equations. It is widely admitted that the work of Drach is full of imcomplete definitions and gaps in proofs. In fact in a few months after Drach had got his degree, Vessiot was aware of the defects of Drach’s thesis. Vessiot took the matter serious and devoted all his life to make the Drach theory complete. Vessiot got the grand prix of the academy of Paris in Mathematics in 1903 by a series of articles.