An iterative construction of irreducible polynomials reducible modulo every prime

Abstract: We give a method of constructing polynomials of arbitrarily large degree irreducible over a global field F but reducible modulo every prime of F. The method consists of finding quadratic f in F[x] whose iterates have the desired property, and it depends on new criteria ensuring all iterates of f are irreducible. In particular when F is a number field in which the ideal (2) is not a square, we construct infinitely many families of quadratic f such that every iterate f^n is irreducible over F, but f^n is reducible modulo all primes of F for n at least 2. We also give an example for each n of a quadratic f with integer coefficients whose iterates are all irreducible over the rationals, whose (n-1)st iterate is irreducible modulo some primes, and whose nth iterate is reducible modulo all primes. From the perspective of Galois theory, this suggests that a well-known rigidity phenomenon for linear Galois representations does not exist for Galois representations obtained by polynomial iteration. Finally, we study the number of primes P for which a given quadratic f defined over a global field has f^n irreducible modulo P for all n.