On the divisors of x^n-1 in F_p[x]

Lola Thompson

Published 2011-11-23, updated 2012-06-15Version 2

In a recent paper, we considered integers n for which the polynomial x^n - 1 has a divisor in Z[x] of every degree up to n, and we gave upper and lower bounds for their distribution. In this paper, we consider those n for which the polynomial x^n-1 has a divisor in F_p[x] of every degree up to n, where p is a rational prime. Assuming the validity of the Generalized Riemann Hypothesis, we show that such integers n have asymptotic density 0.