Liouvillian solutions of first order nonlinear differential equations

Let k be a differential field of characteristic zero and E be a liouvillian extension of k. For any differential subfield K intermediate to E and k, we prove that there is an element in the set K - k satisfying a linear homogeneous differential equation over k. We apply our results to study liouvillian solutions of first order nonlinear differential equations and provide generalisations and new proofs for several results of M. Singer and M. Rosenlicht on this topic. (C) 2016 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.