On the distribution of reducible polynomials

Abstract

Let ℛ _n (t) denote the set of all reducible polynomials p(X) over ℤ with degree n ≥ 2 and height ≤ t. We determine the true order of magnitude of the cardinality |ℛ _n (t)| of the set ℛ _n (t) by showing that, as t → ∞, t ² log t ≪ |ℛ₂(t)| ≪ t ² log t and t ⁿ ≪ |ℛ _n (t)| ≪ t _n for every fixed n ≥ 3. Further, for 1 < n/2 < k < n fixed let ℛ _k,n (t) ⊂ ℛ _n (t) such that p(X) ∈ ℛ _k,n (t) if and only if p(X) has an irreducible factor in ℤ[X] of degree k. Then, as t → ∞, we always have t ^k+1 ≪ |ℛ _k,n (t)| ≪ t ^k+1 and hence |ℛ _n−1,n (t)| ≫ |ℛ _n (t)| so that ℛ _n−1,n (t) is the dominating subclass of ℛ _n (t) since we can show that |ℛ _n (t)∖ℛ _n−1,n (t)| ≪ t ⁿ⁻¹(log t)².On the contrary, if R ^s _n (t) is the total number of all polynomials in ℛ _n (t) which split completely into linear factors over ℤ, then t ²(log t)ⁿ⁻¹ ≪ R ^s _n (t) ≪ t ² (log t)ⁿ⁻¹ (t → ∞) for every fixed n ≥ 2.