A note on the Casas-Alvero Conjecture (2312.08742v2)

Abstract: The Casas-Alvero conjecture predicts that every univariate polynomial $f$ over a field $K$ of characteristic zero having a common factor with each of its derivatives $H_i(f)$ is a power of a linear polynomial. Let $f=x^d+a_1x^{d-1}+\cdots+a_1x \in K[a_1,\ldots,a_{d-1}][x]$ and let $R_i = Res(f,H_i(f))\in K[a_1,\ldots,a_{d-1}]$ be the resultant of $f$ and $H_i(f)$, $i \in {1,\ldots,d-1}$. The Casas-Alvero Conjecture is equivalent to saying that $R_1,\ldots,R_{d-1}$ are ``independent'' in a certain sense, namely that the height $ht(R_1,\ldots,R_{d-1})=d-1$ in $K[a_1,\ldots,a_{d-1}]$. In this paper we prove a very partial result in this direction: if $i \in {d-3,d-2,d-1}$ then $R_i \notin \sqrt{(R_1,\ldots,\breve{R_i},\ldots,R_{d-1}}$.