English

Probabilistic Galois Theory in Function Fields

Number Theory 2024-07-08 v3

Abstract

We study the irreducibility and Galois group of random polynomials over function fields. We prove that a random polynomial f=yn+i=0n1ai(x)yiFq[x][y]f=y^n+\sum_{i=0}^{n-1}a_i(x)y^i\in\mathbb F_q[x][y] with i.i.d coefficients aia_i taking values in the set {a(x)Fq[x]:degad}\{a(x)\in\mathbb{F}_q[x]: \mathrm{deg}\, a\leq d\} with uniform probability, is irreducible with probability tending to 11qd1-\frac{1}{q^d} as nn\to\infty, where dd and qq are fixed. We also prove that with the same probability, the Galois group of this random polynomial contains the alternating group AnA_n. Moreover, we prove that if we assume a version of the polynomial Chowla conjecture over Fq[x]\mathbb{F}_q[x], then the Galois group of this polynomial is actually equal to the symmetric group SnS_n with probability tending to 11qd1-\frac{1}{q^d}. We also study the other possible Galois groups occurring with positive limit probability. Finally, we study the same problems with nn fixed and dd\to\infty.

Keywords

Cite

@article{arxiv.2311.14862,
  title  = {Probabilistic Galois Theory in Function Fields},
  author = {Alexei Entin and Alexander Popov},
  journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:2311.14862},
  year   = {2024}
}

Comments

v2: changed conditional results to depend on a more standard version of Chowla's conjecture. Added references acknowledgments. Fixed small errors, typos and style issues. v3: fixed a few small errors

R2 v1 2026-06-28T13:31:02.906Z