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Concept
Difference algebra
Summary
Difference algebra is a branch of mathematics concerned with the study of difference (or functional) equations from the algebraic point of view. Difference algebra is analogous to differential algebra but concerned with difference equations rather than differential equations. As an independent subject it was initiated by Joseph Ritt and his student Richard Cohn.
A difference ring is a commutative ring together with a ring endomorphism . Often it is assumed that is injective. When is a field one speaks of a difference field. A classical example of a difference field is the field of rational functions with the difference operator given by . The role of difference rings in difference algebra is similar to the role of commutative rings in commutative algebra and algebraic geometry. A morphism of difference rings is a morphism of rings that commutes with . A difference algebra over a difference field is a difference ring with a -algebra structure such that is a morphism of difference rings, i.e. extends . A difference algebra that is a field is called a difference field extension.
The difference polynomial ring over a difference field in the (difference) variables is the polynomial ring over in the infinitely many variables . It becomes a difference algebra over by extending from to as suggested by the naming of the variables.
By a system of algebraic difference equations over one means any subset of . If is a difference algebra over the solutions of in are
Classically one is mainly interested in solutions in difference field extensions of . For example, if and is the field of meromorphic functions on with difference operator given by , then the fact that the gamma function satisfies the functional equation can be restated abstractly as .
Intuitively, a difference variety over a difference field is the set of solutions of a system of algebraic difference equations over . This definition has to be made more precise by specifying where one is looking for the solutions.
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