I want to show that the polynomial below has integer coefficients.

polynomialsrootssymmetric-polynomials

Edit: According to the suggestions in comments, this only holds when f(x) is monic.

Let $p$ be a prime number and $f(x) = \sum_{i=0}^{p} a_{i}x^{i}$ be a monic polynomial with $a_{0}, a_{1}, \ldots, a_{p} \in\mathbb{Z}$. Let $\alpha_{1}, \alpha_{2}, \ldots, \alpha_{p}$ be its roots.

I am trying to show that the polynomial $$g(x) = \frac{x^{p} – \alpha_{1}^{p}}{x – \alpha_{1}} \cdot \frac{x^{p} – \alpha_{2}^{p}}{x – \alpha_{2}} \cdots \frac{x^{p} – \alpha_{p}^{p}}{x – \alpha_{p}}$$ has integer coefficients.

My attempt: I managed to show that the polynomial $$h(x) = (x^{p} – \alpha_{1}^{p})\cdot (x^{p} – \alpha_{2}^{p})\cdots (x^{p} – \alpha_{p}^{p})$$ is a polynomial with integer coefficients. This is because coefficient of $f(x)$ are values of elementary symmetric polynomial in $p$ variables, evaluated at the roots $\alpha_{1}, \alpha_{2}, \ldots, \alpha_{p}$ and coefficient of $h(x)$ are values of same elementary symmetric polynomial evaluated at $\alpha_{1}^{p}, \ldots, \alpha_{p}^{p}$. Then I used Fundamental Theorem of Symmetric Polynomials.

My strategy was to show that when I divide $h(x)$ by $(x-\alpha_{1})\cdots (x-\alpha_{p})$, I get integer polynomial as a result. I thought of doing this partially because it might help me find the coefficents of $g(x)$ too. But now, I am struggling to show that.

Are there any other strategy to this problem (preferably that can help me isolate the coefficients of $g(x)$)?

Best Answer

For $n\ge3,$ let $f(x)\in \mathbb Z[x]$ be monic of degree $n.$ The roots of $f(x)$ are $\alpha_1, \alpha_2, \ldots, \alpha_n.$ Let $$g(x) = \frac{x^n - \alpha_1^n}{x - \alpha_1} \cdots \frac{x^n - \alpha_n^n}{x - \alpha_n}$$

$$g(x)=\prod_{k=1}^n (x^{n-1}+\alpha_kx^{n-2}+\alpha_k^2x^{n-3}+\cdots +\alpha_k^{n-1} )\tag1$$ By (1), g(x) is unchanged whenever the roots are permuted. Thus, each coefficient of $g(x)$ is a symmetric function of the roots of $f(x)$ (with coefficients in $\mathbb Z$). By the well-known theorem, each coefficient of $g(x)$ is therefore a $\mathbb Z$-linear combination of elementary symmetric functions of the roots of $f(x)$. Since the latter are integers, $g(x)\in\mathbb Z[x].$