Find all polynomials whose coefficients are $\{0,\ldots, n\}$ and all roots are real

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Find all polynomials $P \in \mathbb{Z}[x],\;\deg(P)= n$ s.t.:

$(1)$ All roots of $P$ are real

$(2)$ The set of coefficients of polynomial $P$ is equal to $\{0, 1, …, n\}$

Due to Vieta's formula, I have realized that the coefficient $a_0$ (the one that is with $x^0$) must be equal to $0$.

Best Answer

Notice that every polynomial satisfying the two conditions must be positive on $\mathbb{R}$, therefore all its roots are negative. Now Let's write $P=X\prod_{1\leq k \leq n-1}(X+a_{i})$

we have $(\sum_{1 \leq k \leq n-1} a_{k})((\sum_{1 \leq k \leq n-1} \frac1{a_{k}})\geq (n-1)^2$, therefore $(\sum_{1 \leq k \leq n-1} a_{k})((\sum_{1 \leq k \leq n-1} (\prod_{1 \leq j \leq n-1} a_{j})\frac1{a_{k}})\geq (n-1)^2(\prod_{1 \leq j \leq n-1} a_{j})$

Notice that the coefficient of $x^{n-1} $(respectively $x$) in the expansion of $P=\prod_{1\leq k \leq n-1}(x+a_{i})$ is $(\sum_{1 \leq k \leq n-1} a_{k})$ (respectively $(\sum_{1 \leq k \leq n-1} (\prod_{1 \leq j \leq n-1} a_{j})\frac1{a_{k}})$ ). therefore there product is inferior to $n(n-1)$

but this implies $ \frac{n}{n-1}\geq (\prod_{1 \leq j \leq n-1} a_{j}) $ therefore being the coefficient of $x^{1}$ in $P$ the quantity $ (\prod_{1 \leq j \leq n-1} a_{j}) =1 or 2$. it equals 2 if and only if n=2 i.e $P=X(X+2)$ .

I think that if you push the reasoning and consider the coefficient of $x^{k}$ times the coefficient of $x^{n-k}$ you can prove that this is the only solution for $n\geq2$.

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