Decomposing a 4th order linear differential equation as a symmetric product
Let L(y) = 0 be a linear differential equation with rational functions as coefficients. To solve L(y) = 0 it is very helpful if the problem could be reduced to solving linear differential equations of lower order. One way is to compute a factorization of L, if L is reducible. Another way is to see if an operator L of order greater than 2 is a symmetric power of a second order operator. Maple contains implementations for both of these. The next step would be to see if L is a symmetric product of...