The new density conjecture for symmetric pairs of roots

Let f(x)f(x) be a polynomial of degree nn. For a prime pp in Spl(f)Spl(f), number the roots of f(x)f(x) modulo pp as

0r1rn<p.0\le r_1\le\dots\le r_n<p.

For a subset S{1,2,,n}S\subseteq\{1,2,\dots,n\}, write Pr(f,S)Pr(f,S) for the limiting frequency table of the quantities iSri/p\left\lceil\sum_{i\in S}r_i/p\right\rceil over splitting primes, when this limit exists. The new density conjecture. Suppose that f(x)f(x) is not equal to g(h(x))g(h(x)) for any quadratic polynomial h(x)h(x). Then, for every jj with 1jn1\le j\le n, one has

Pr(f,{j,n+1j})=[1/2,1/2].Pr(f,\{j,n+1-j\})=[1/2,1/2].

Here [1,1]/2[1,1]/2 denotes [1/2,1/2][1/2,1/2]. The statement is presented as a conjecture based on numerical experiments; it predicts an equal limiting frequency for the two possible values of the sum of each symmetric pair of normalized roots, subject to the stated non-composition hypothesis.

Sources & referencesView supporting material

Primary source

Yoshiyuki Kitaoka, “Statistical distribution of roots of a polynomial modulo primes”, arXiv:1706.08636 (2017).

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