The Smallest Pisot Element in the Field of Formal Power Series Over a Finite Field

http://dx.doi.org/10.4153/CMB-2011-168-5
Canad. Math. Bull. 56(2013), 258-264

  Published:2011-08-31
 Printed: Jun 2013

Dufresnoy and Pisot characterized the smallest Pisot number of degree $n \geq 3$ by giving explicitly its minimal polynomial. In this paper, we translate Dufresnoy and Pisot's result to the Laurent series case. The aim of this paper is to prove that the minimal polynomial of the smallest Pisot element (SPE) of degree $n$ in the field of formal power series over a finite field is given by $P(Y)=Y^{n}-\alpha XY^{n-1}-\alpha^n,$ where $\alpha$ is the least element of the finite field $\mathbb{F}_{q}\backslash\{0\}$ (as a finite total ordered set). We prove that the sequence of SPEs of degree $n$ is decreasing and converges to $\alpha X.$ Finally, we show how to obtain explicit continued fraction expansion of the smallest Pisot element over a finite field.