Related papers: Square values of several polynomials over a finite…

We show that every real nonnegative polynomial $f$ can be approximated as closely as desired by a sequence of polynomials $\{f_\epsilon\}$ that are sums of squares. Each $f_\epsilon$ has a simple et explicit form in terms of $f$ and…

We study a random polynomial of degree $n$ over the finite field $\mathbb{F}_q$, where the coefficients are independent and identically distributed and uniformly chosen from the squares in $\mathbb{F}_q$. Our main result demonstrates that…

For any affine hypersurface defined by a complete symmetric polynomial in $k\geq 3$ variables of degree $m$ over the finite field $\mathbb{F}_{q}$ of $q$ elements, a special case of our theorem says that this hypersurface has at least…

We study separable plus quadratic (SPQ) polynomials, i.e., polynomials that are the sum of univariate polynomials in different variables and a quadratic polynomial. Motivated by the fact that nonnegative separable and nonnegative quadratic…

We study the set of common F_q-rational zeros of systems of multivariate symmetric polynomials with coefficients in a finite field F_q. We establish certain properties on these polynomials which imply that the corresponding set of zeros…

We consider two seemingly unrelated questions: the relationship between nonnegative polynomials and sums of squares on real varieties, and sparse semidefinite programming. This connection is natural when a real variety $X$ is defined by a…

Let f be a square-free polynomial in Fq[t][x] where Fq is a field of q elements. We view f as a polynomial in the variable x with coefficients in the ring Fq[t]. We study squarefree values of f in sparse subsets of Fq[t] which are given by…

We use the "closed point sieve" to prove a variant of a Bertini theorem over finite fields. Specifically, given a smooth quasi-projective subscheme X of P^n of dimension m over F_q, and a closed subscheme Z in P^n such that Z intersect X is…

For each odd prime power q, and each integer k, we determine the sum of the k-th powers of all elements x in F_q for which both x and x+1 are squares in F_q^*. We also solve the analogous problem when one or both of x and x+1 is a…

Let $f$ be a polynomial system consisting of $n$ polynomials $f_1,\cdots, f_n$ in $n$ variables $x_1,\cdots, x_n$, with coefficients in $\mathbb{Q}$ and let $\langle f\rangle$ be the ideal generated by $f$. Such a polynomial system, which…

We investigate the representation of symmetric polynomials as a sum of squares. Since this task is solved using semidefinite programming tools we explore the geometric, algebraic, and computational implications of the presence of discrete…

Let $f(x_1,...,x_k)$ be a polynomial over a field $K$. This paper considers such questions as the enumeration of the number of nonzero coefficients of $f$ or of the number of coefficients equal to $\alpha\in K^*$. For instance, if $K=\ff_q$…

We propose an iterative algorithm for the numerical computation of sums of squares of polynomials approximating given data at prescribed interpolation points. The method is based on the definition of a convex functional $G$ arising from the…

Let $\mathbb{F}_q[t]$ be the polynomial ring over the finite field $\mathbb{F}_q$ of $q$ elements. A polynomial in $\mathbb{F}_q[t]$ is called $m$-smooth (or $m$-friable) if all its irreducible factors are of degree at most $m$. In this…

L. Bary-Soroker and R. Shmueli (2026) have given an asymptotic formula for the number of irreducible polynomials over the finite fields $\mathbb F_q$ of $q$ elements, such that their coefficients are perfect squares in $\mathbb F_q$ and…

Let $\mathbb F_{q^2}$ be the finite field with $q^2$ elements. We provide a simple and effective method, using reciprocal polynomials, for the construction of algebraic curves over $\mathbb F_{q^2}$ with many rational points. The curves…

Let $f,g_1,\dots,g_m$ be polynomials with real coefficients in a vector of variables $x=(x_1,\dots,x_n)$. Denote by $\text{diag}(g)$ the diagonal matrix with coefficients $g=(g_1,\dots,g_m)$ and denote by $\nabla g$ the Jacobian of $g$. Let…

There exist homogeneous polynomials $f$ with $\mathbb Q$-coefficients that are sums of squares over $\mathbb R$ but not over $\mathbb Q$. The only systematic construction of such polynomials that is known so far uses as its key ingredient…

We prove that the average error term when counting square-free values of polynomials is the quartic root of the main term.

We estimate mixed character sums of polynomial values over elements of a finite field $\mathbb F_{q^r}$ with sparse representations in a fixed ordered basis over the subfield $\mathbb F_q$. First we use a combination of the…