Tame and wild degree functions

Abstract

We give examples of degree functions deg : R --> M, where R is a polynomial ring in 2 or 3 variables and M is either the integers or the natural numbers, whose behaviour with respect to derivations D : R --> R is pathological in the sense that deg(Dx) - deg(x) (where x in R \ {0}) is not bounded above. We also give several general results stating that such pathologies do not occur when the degree functions satisfy certain hypotheses.