Hilbert's conjectured resolvent degrees for polynomials of degrees six, seven, and eight

Let rdC(n)\operatorname{rd}_{\mathbb C}(n) denote the resolvent degree of the general polynomial of degree nn over C\mathbb C. It is known that rdC(n)=1\operatorname{rd}_{\mathbb C}(n)=1 for n5n\leqslant 5.

Hilbert's conjecture.

rdC(6)=2,rdC(7)=3,rdC(8)=4.\operatorname{rd}_{\mathbb C}(6)=2,\qquad \operatorname{rd}_{\mathbb C}(7)=3,\qquad \operatorname{rd}_{\mathbb C}(8)=4.

These values were conjectured by Hilbert and concern the first degrees for which the resolvent degree is not known. The surrounding discussion emphasizes that even whether rdC(n)>1\operatorname{rd}_{\mathbb C}(n)>1 for some nn remains unresolved; no resolution of these three specific values is supplied here.

Sources & referencesView supporting material

Primary source

Oakley Edens and Zinovy Reichstein, “Hilbert's 13th problem in prime characteristic”, arXiv:2406.15954 (2024).

Additional references

5 papers in this index state this conjecture (1997–2024). The statement above is taken from the most recent of them; the others are arXiv:1907.13417, arXiv:0708.3390, arXiv:math/0108071, arXiv:q-alg/9705003.

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