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A note on the Casas-Alvero Conjecture

Commutative Algebra 2025-02-12 v7 Algebraic Geometry

Abstract

The Casas--Alvero conjecture predicts that every univariate polynomial ff over a field KK of characteristic zero having a common factor with each of its derivatives H_i(f)H\_i(f) is a power of a linear polynomial. Let f=xd+a_1xd1++a_1xK[a_1,,a_d1][x]f=x^d+a\_1x^{d-1}+\cdots+a\_1x \in K[a\_1,\ldots,a\_{d-1}][x] and let R_i=Res(f,H_i(f))K[a_1,,a_d1]R\_i = Res(f,H\_i(f))\in K[a\_1,\ldots,a\_{d-1}] be the resultant of ff and H_i(f)H\_i(f), i{1,,d1}i \in \{1,\ldots,d-1\}. The Casas-Alvero Conjecture is equivalent to saying that R_1,,R_d1R\_1,\ldots,R\_{d-1} are ``independent'' in a certain sense, namely that the height ht(R_1,,R_d1)=d1ht(R\_1,\ldots,R\_{d-1})=d-1 in K[a_1,,a_d1]K[a\_1,\ldots,a\_{d-1}]. In this paper we prove a very partial result in this direction : if i{d3,d2,d1}i \in \{d-3,d-2,d-1\} then R_i(R_1,,R_i˘,,R_d1R\_i \notin \sqrt{(R\_1,\ldots,\breve{R\_i},\ldots,R\_{d-1}}.

Keywords

Cite

@article{arxiv.2312.08742,
  title  = {A note on the Casas-Alvero Conjecture},
  author = {Daniel Schaub and Mark Spivakovsky},
  journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:2312.08742},
  year   = {2025}
}
R2 v1 2026-06-28T13:50:37.069Z