Open Access

Wolfram Koepf, Dieter Schmersau

• {\newcommand{\N} {{\rm {\mbox{\protect\makebox[.15em][l]{I}N}}}} In several publications the first author published an algorithm for the conversion of analytic functions for which derivative rules are given into their representing power series $\sum\limits_{k=0}^{\infty}a_{k}z^{k}$ at the origin and vice versa, implementations of which exist in {\sc Mathematica}, {\sc Maple} and {\sc Reduce}. One main part of this procedure is an algorithm to derive a homogeneous linear differential equation with polynomial coefficients for the given function. We call this type of ordinary differential equations {\sl simple}. Whereas the opposite question to find functions satisfying given differential equations is studied in great detail, our question to find differential equations that are satisfied by given functions seems to be rarely posed. In this paper we consider the family $F$ of functions satisfying a simple differential equation generated by the rational, the algebraic, and certain transcendental functions. It turns out that $F$ forms a linear space of transcendental functions. % with polynomial function coefficients. Further $F$ is closed under multiplication and under the composition with rational functions and rational powers. These results had been published by Stanley who had proved them by theoretical algebraic considerations. In contrast our treatment is purely algorithmically oriented. We present algorithms that generate simple differential equation for $f+g$, $f\cdot g$, $f\circ r$ ($r$ rational), and $f\circ x^{p/q}$ ($p,q\in\N_0$), given simple differential equations for $f$, and $g$, and give a priori estimates for the order of the resulting differential equations. We show that all order estimates are sharp. After finishing this article we realized that in independent work Salvy and Zimmermann published similar algorithms. Our treatment gives a detailed description of those algorithms and their validity.}