Related papers: Primes and irreducible polynomials

We study the polynomials $x^n + (1-x)^n + a^n, a \in\mathbb{Q}$, whose rational roots would yield counterexamples to Fermat's Last Theorem. We investigate their factorization over $\mathbb{Q}$. In the case $a \notin \{0, \pm 1\}$, we ask…

Let $P(X)\in\mathbb{Z}[X]$ be an irreducible, monic, quartic polynomial with cyclic or dihedral Galois group. We prove that there exists a constant $c_P>0$ such that for a positive proportion of integers $n$, $P(n)$ has a prime factor $\ge…

We study the number of irreducible factors (over $\mathbb{Q}$) of the $n$th iterate of a polynomial of the form $f_r(x) = x^2 + r$ for rational $r$. When the number of such factors is bounded independent of $n$, we call $f_r(x)$…

Let $p>5$ be a prime. We prove congruences modulo $p^{3-d}$ for sums of the general form $\sum_{k=0}^{(p-3)/2}\binom{2k}{k}t^k/(2k+1)^{d+1}$ and $\sum_{k=1}^{(p-1)/2}\binom{2k}{k}t^k/k^d$ with $d=0,1$. We also consider the special case…

Let $f$ be sampled uniformly at random from the set of degree $n$ polynomials whose coefficients lie in $\{ \pm 1\}$. A folklore conjecture, known to hold under GRH, states that the probability that $f$ is irreducible tends to $1$ as $n$…

In this paper we construct infinite sequences of monic irreducible polynomials with coefficients in odd prime fields by means of a transformation introduced by Cohen in 1992. We make no assumptions on the coefficients of the first…

We provide upper bounds on the density of a symmetric generalized arithmetic progression lacking nonzero elements of the form h(n) for natural numbers n, or h(p) with p prime, for appropriate polynomials h with integer coefficients. The…

We obtain new bounds of exponential sums modulo a prime $p$ with binomials $ax^k + bx^n$. In particular, for $k=1$, we improve the bound of Karatsuba (1967) from $O(n^{1/4} p^{3/4})$ to $O\left(p^{3/4} + n^{1/3}p^{2/3}\right)$ for any $n$,…

We establish the existence of infinitely many \emph{polynomial} progressions in the primes; more precisely, given any integer-valued polynomials $P_1, >..., P_k \in \Z[\m]$ in one unknown $\m$ with $P_1(0) = ... = P_k(0) = 0$ and any $\eps…

Let $f(x)$ be a monic polynomial in $\dZ[x]$ with no rational roots but with roots in $\dQ_p$ for all $p$, or equivalently, with roots mod $n$ for all $n$. It is known that $f(x)$ cannot be irreducible but can be a product of two or more…

This note investigates the prime values of the polynomial $f(t)=qt^2+a$ for any fixed pair of relatively prime integers $ a\geq 1$ and $ q\geq 1$ of opposite parity. For a large number $x\geq1$, an asymptotic result of the form $\sum_{n\leq…

We present an elementary proof that the Schur polynomial corresponding to an increasing sequence of exponents (c_0,..., c_{n-1}) with c_0 = 0 is irreducible over every field of characteristic p whenever the numbers d_i = c_{i+1} - c_i are…

It is known that random monic integral polynomials of bounded degree $d$ and integral coefficients distributed uniformly and independently in $[-H,H]$ are irreducible over $\mathbb{Z}$ with probability tending to $1$ as $H\to \infty$. In…

In his paper Almost-Primes Represented by Quadratic Polynomials, Iwaniec proved that the polynomial n^2 + 1 takes on values with at most two prime factors (counted with multiplicity) infinitely often. He states that "in order to avoid…

Given a global field K and a polynomial f defined over K of degree at least two, Morton and Silverman conjectured in 1994 that the number of K-rational preperiodic points of f is bounded in terms of only the degree of K and the degree of f.…

For a polynomial $g(x)$ of deg $k \geq 2$ with integer coefficients and positive integer leading coefficient, we prove an upper bound for the least prime $p$ such that $g(p)$ is in non-homogeneous Beatty sequence $\lbrace \lfloor \alpha…

Let $f_1,\dots,f_k \in \mathbb{R}[X]$ be polynomials of degree at most $d$ with $f_1(0)=\dots=f_k(0)=0$. We show that there is an $n<x$ such that $\|f_i(n)\|\ll x^{-1/10.5kd(d-1)+o(1)}$ for all $1\le i\le k$. This improves on an earlier…

Issai Schur once asked if it was possible to determine a bound, preferably using elementary methods, such that for all prime numbers p greater than the bound, the greatest number of consecutive quadratic non-residues modulo p is always less…

In this paper, we provide the degree distribution of irreducible factors of the composed polynomial $f(L(x))$ over $\mathbb F_q$, where $f(x)\in \mathbb F_q[x]$ is irreducible and $L(x)\in \mathbb F_q[x]$ is a linearized polynomial. We…

Let $f(x)\in\mathbb{Z}[x]$ be a nonconstant polynomial. Let $n, k$ and $c$ be integers such that $n\ge 1$ and $k\ge 2$. An integer $a$ is called an $f$-exunit in the ring $\mathbb{Z}_n$ of residue classes modulo $n$ if $\gcd(f(a),n)=1$. In…