English

Counting Roots of Polynomials over $\mathbb{Z}/p^2\mathbb{Z}$

Number Theory 2018-11-26 v2 Computational Complexity Symbolic Computation Commutative Algebra

Abstract

Until recently, the only known method of finding the roots of polynomials over prime power rings, other than fields, was brute force. One reason for this is the lack of a division algorithm, obstructing the use of greatest common divisors. Fix a prime pZp \in \mathbb{Z} and f(Z/pnZ)[x]f \in ( \mathbb{Z}/p^n \mathbb{Z} ) [x] any nonzero polynomial of degree dd whose coefficients are not all divisible by pp. For the case n=2n=2, we prove a new efficient algorithm to count the roots of ff in Z/p2Z\mathbb{Z}/p^2\mathbb{Z} within time polynomial in (d+size(f)+logp)(d+\operatorname{size}(f)+\log{p}), and record a concise formula for the number of roots, formulated by Cheng, Gao, Rojas, and Wan.

Keywords

Cite

@article{arxiv.1708.04713,
  title  = {Counting Roots of Polynomials over $\mathbb{Z}/p^2\mathbb{Z}$},
  author = {Trajan Hammonds and Jeremy Johnson and Angela Patini and Robert M. Walker},
  journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:1708.04713},
  year   = {2018}
}

Comments

6 pages, comments welcome! Rewritten to address referee feedback. Bibliography updated. There is a new Corollary 3.3 giving a formula for the number of degenerate roots modulo p that fail to lift to roots modulo p^2

R2 v1 2026-06-22T21:15:39.456Z