Published online by Cambridge University Press: 12 March 2014
The main purpose of this paper is to show that there exists a prime differentially closed extension over each differentially perfect field. We do this in a roundabout manner by first giving new and simple axioms for the theory of differentially closed fields (in the manner of Blum [1] for characteristic 0) and by proving that this theory is the model completion of the theory of differentially perfect fields. This paper can be read independently from [10], where we gave more complicated axioms for the same theory (in the manner of Robinson [6] for characteristic 0).
I am indebted to E. R. Kolchin for answering many questions and for making the manuscript of his forthcoming book [2] available to me.