English

Reducible Fibers of Polynomial Maps

Number Theory 2022-09-09 v3 Group Theory

Abstract

For a degree nn polynomial ff over the rationals, the elements in the fiber f1(a)f^{-1}(a) are of degree nn over Q\mathbb Q for most rational values aa by Hilbert's irreducibility theorem. Determining the set of exceptional aa's without this property is a long standing open problem that is closely related to the Davenport--Lewis--Schinzel problem (1959) on reducibility of separated polynomials. As opposed to previous work which mostly concerns indecomposable ff, we answer both problems for decomposable f=f1frf=f_1\circ\cdots\circ f_r, as long as the indecomposable factors fiQ[x]f_i\in\mathbb Q[x] are of degree at least 55 and are not xnx^n or a Chebyshev polynomial composed with linear polynomials.

Keywords

Cite

@article{arxiv.2001.03630,
  title  = {Reducible Fibers of Polynomial Maps},
  author = {Joachim König and Danny Neftin},
  journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:2001.03630},
  year   = {2022}
}

Comments

26 pgs. The manuscript was shortened to focus on polynomials and makes clearer the use of the classification of finite simple groups