Counting degenerate polynomials of fixed degree and bounded height (1402.5430v2)

Abstract: In this paper, we give sharp upper and lower bounds for the number of degenerate monic (and arbitrary, not necessarily monic) polynomials with integer coefficients of fixed degree $n \ge 2$ and height bounded by $H \ge 2$. The polynomial is called degenerate if it has two distinct roots whose quotient is a root of unity. In particular, our bounds imply that non-degenerate linear recurrence sequences can be generated randomly.