Galois groups of random integer polynomials and van der Waerden's Conjecture

Abstract

Of the $(2H+1)^n$ monic integer polynomials $f(x)=x^n+a_1 x^{n-1}+\cdots+a_n$ with $\max\{|a_1|,\ldots,|a_n|\}\leq H$, how many have associated Galois group that is not the full symmetric group $S_n$? There are clearly $\gg H^{n-1}$ such polynomials, as may be obtained by setting $a_n=0$. In 1936, van der Waerden conjectured that $O(H^{n-1})$ should in fact also be the correct upper bound for the count of such polynomials. The conjecture has been known previously for degrees $n\leq 4$, due to work of van der Waerden and Chow and Dietmann. The purpose of this paper is to prove van der Waerden's Conjecture for all degrees $n$.

Theorems & Definitions (34)

• Theorem 1
• Theorem 2
• Corollary 3
• Corollary 4
• Corollary 5
• Corollary 6
• Theorem 7
• Corollary 8
• Proposition 9: Jordan
• Proposition 10: Jordan