Liouvillian solutions of third order differential equations

The Kovacic algorithm and its improvements give explicit formulae for the Liouvillian solutions of second order linear differential equations. Algorithms for third order differential equations also exist, but the tools they use are more sophisticated and the computations more involved. In this paper we refine parts of the algorithm to find Liouvillian solutions of third order equations. We show that, except for four finite groups and a reduction to the second order case, it is possible to give a formula in the imprimitive case. We also give necessary conditions and several simplifications for the computation of the minimal polynomial for the remaining finite set of finite groups (or any known finite group) by extracting ramification information from the character table. Several examples have been constructed, illustrating the possibilities and limitations. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]