Solving a Class of Higher-Order Equations over a Group Structure

Abstract

In recent years, symbolic and constraint-solving techniques have been making major advances and are continually being deployed in new business and engineering applications. A major push behind this trend has been the development and deployment of sophisticated methods that are able to comprehend and evaluate important sub-classes of symbolic problems (such as those in polynomial, linear inequality and finite domains). However, relatively little has been explored in higher-order domains, such as equations with unknown functions. This paper proposes a new symbolic method for solving a class of higher-order equations with an unknown function over the complex domain. Our method exploits the closure property of group structure (for functions) in order to allow an equivalent system of equations to be expressed and solved in the first-order setting. Our work is an initial step towards the relatively unexplored realm of higher-order constraint-solving, in general; and higher-order equational solving, in particular. We shall provide some theoretical background for the proposed method, and also prototype an implementation under Mathematica. We hope that our foray will help open up more sophisticated applications, as well as encourage work towards new methods for solving higher-order constraints.