On the identification and stability of formal invariants for singular differential equations

Given a system of linear differential equations near an irregular singularity of pole type, formal invariants are quantities that remain unchanged with respect to linear transformations of the system. While certain “natural” formal invariants can easily be observed in formal fundamental solution matrices, the algorithms for constructing them do not readily show how the invariants can be universally described as properties of the coefficient matrix of the system, and in particular of the individual constant matrices in the power-series expansion. Other invariants have been abstractly defined by mapping properties of the differential operator, but they are not immediately related to either the natural invariants or the coefficients. In this paper we show how certain invariants in the formal solution may be described and calculated through matrix-theoretic properties of the coefficients and at the same time show how they are related to ones for the differential operator.