On Cauchy--Liouville--Mirimanoff Polynomials

http://dx.doi.org/10.4153/CMB-2007-030-7
Canad. Math. Bull. 50(2007), 313-320

  Published:2007-06-01
 Printed: Jun 2007

Let $p$ be a prime greater than or equal to 17 and congruent to 2 modulo 3. We use results of Beukers and Helou on Cauchy--Liouville--Mirimanoff polynomials to show that the intersection of the Fermat curve of degree $p$ with the line $X+Y=Z$ in the projective plane contains no algebraic points of degree $d$ with $3 \leq d \leq 11$. We prove a result on the roots of these polynomials and show that, experimentally, they seem to satisfy the conditions of a mild extension of an irreducibility theorem of P\'{o}lya and Szeg\"{o}. These conditions are \emph{conjecturally} also necessary for irreducibility.