A cyclotomic polynomial $\unicode[STIX]{x1D6F7}_{k}(x)$ is an essential cyclotomic factor of $f(x)\in \mathbb{Z}[x]$ if $\unicode[STIX]{x1D6F7}_{k}(x)\mid f(x)$ and every prime divisor of $k$ is less than or equal to the number of terms of $f.$ We show that if a monic polynomial with coefficients from $\{-1,0,1\}$ has a cyclotomic factor, then it has an essential cyclotomic factor. We use this result to prove a conjecture posed by Mercer [‘Newman polynomials, reducibility, and roots on the unit circle’, Integers12(4) (2012), 503–519].

In this series of papers, we explore moments of derivatives of L-functions in function fields using classical analytic techniques such as character sums and approximate functional equation. The present paper is concerned with the study of mean values of derivatives of quadratic Dirichlet L-functions over function fields when the average is taken over monic and irreducible polynomials P in 𝔽q[T]. When the cardinality q of the ground field is fixed and the degree of P gets large, we obtain asymptotic formulas for the first moment of the first and the second derivative of this family of L-functions at the critical point. We also compute the full polynomial expansion in the asymptotic formulas for both mean values.

We prove an analogue of the classical Bateman–Horn conjecture on prime values of polynomials for the ring of polynomials over a large finite field. Namely, given non-associate, irreducible, separable and monic (in the variable $x$ ) polynomials $F_{1},\ldots ,F_{m}\in \mathbf{F}_{q}[t][x]$ , we show that the number of $f\in \mathbf{F}_{q}[t]$ of degree $n\geqslant \max (3,\deg _{t}F_{1},\ldots ,\deg _{t}F_{m})$ such that all $F_{i}(t,f)\in \mathbf{F}_{q}[t],1\leqslant i\leqslant m$ , are irreducible is

$$\begin{eqnarray}\displaystyle \biggl(\mathop{\prod }_{i=1}^{m}\frac{\unicode[STIX]{x1D707}_{i}}{N_{i}}\biggr)q^{n+1}(1+O_{m,\,\max \deg F_{i},\,n}(q^{-1/2})), & & \displaystyle \nonumber\end{eqnarray}$$

$N_{i}=n\deg _{x}F_{i}$

$F_{i}(t,f)$

$\deg f=n$

$\unicode[STIX]{x1D707}_{i}$

$F_{i}$

$\overline{\mathbf{F}}_{q}$

$\mathbf{F}_{q}(t)$

$F_{1},\ldots ,F_{m}$

$x$

$n$

$C$

$$\begin{eqnarray}\displaystyle \mathop{\prod }_{i=1}^{m}F_{i}(t,x)=0 & & \displaystyle \nonumber\end{eqnarray}$$

$(\sum _{i=1}^{m}\deg F_{i})^{2}/2$

$\deg$

$t,x$

$$\begin{eqnarray}\displaystyle p=\text{char}\,\mathbf{F}_{q}>\max _{1\leqslant i\leqslant m}N_{i}, & & \displaystyle \nonumber\end{eqnarray}$$

$N_{i}$

$F_{i}(t,f)$

$\deg f=n$

Let $v$ be a henselian valuation of any rank of a field $K$ and let $\bar{v}$ be the unique extension of $v$ to a fixed algebraic closure $\overline{K}$ of $K$. In 2005, we studied properties of those pairs $\left( \theta ,\,\alpha \right)$ of elements of $\overline{K}$ with $\left[ K\left( \theta \right):K \right]\,>\,\left[ K\left( \alpha \right):K \right]$ where $\alpha $ is an element of smallest degree over $K$ such that

$$\bar{v}\left( \theta \,-\,\alpha \right)\,=\,\sup \left\{ \bar{v}\left( \theta \,-\,\beta \right)\,|\,\beta \,\in \,\bar{K},\,\left[ K\left( \beta \right):K \right]\,<\,\left[ K\left( \theta \right):K \right] \right\}\,.$$

Such pairs are referred to as distinguished pairs. We use the concept of liftings of irreducible polynomials to give a different characterization of distinguished pairs.

In 1903 Mirimanoff conjectured that Cauchy–Mirimanoff polynomials En are irreducible over ℚ for odd prime n. Polynomials Rn, Sn, Tn are introduced, closely related to En. It is proved that Rm, Sm, Tm are irreducible over ℚ for odd m≥3 , and En, Rn, Sn are irreducible over ℚ, for n=2qm, q=1,2,3,4,5 , and m≥1 odd.

We use some classical estimates for polynomial roots to provide several irreducibility criteria for polynomials with integer coefficients that have one sufficiently large coefficient and take a prime value.