A descent-set obstruction for the Casas-Alvero conjecture

Abstract

The Casas--Alvero conjecture asserts that a monic polynomial $f$ of degree $d$ over a field of characteristic zero sharing a non-constant factor with each of $f',\dots,f^{(d-1)}$ is the $d$-th power of a linear polynomial. Two reductions are carried out. Once a root is translated to the origin, the condition at index $i$ is vacuous unless the coefficient $a_{d-i}$ is nonzero, so the Casas--Alvero locus stratifies by the support of the centred normal form; prescribing in addition which root realises each surviving condition makes the system unit lower triangular and eliminates the coefficients of $f$ entirely. When one root suffices, what remains is a single integer, and that integer is MacMahon's determinant: the number of permutations of $\{1,\dots,d\}$ with descent set the support of $f$. Since every subset is a descent set, no counterexample has fewer than three recycled roots; in characteristic $p$ a prime dividing one of these counts but none of the accompanying integers $z_{i}$ is a bad prime, the largest count in degree $d$ being the Euler zigzag number $A_{d}$, so that the irregular prime $691$ is bad for $d=11$. The stratification also yields short proofs of the two characteristic-$p$ propositions on which all known cases rest; supports of two elements are settled separately in every characteristic, whence a counterexample has at least four terms in centred normal form and a further Gr\"obner-free criterion for bad primes.