Holomorphic foliations with Liouvillian first integrals

Abstract

Intuitively, a Liouvillian function on \mathbb{C} P(n) is one which is obtained from rational functions by a finite process of integrations, exponentiations and algebraic operations. This paper is devoted to the study of foliations determined by polynomial 1-forms which have a Liouvillian first integral. Our main result states that, under some mild restrictions on the singularities of the foliation, such a foliation must be either a linear foliation or an exponent two Bernoulli foliation after some rational pull-back. This proves that the highest level of transcendence for the ordinary differential equations which can be integrated by the use of elementary functions is reached at the Riccati equations.