Facultatea de Matematică

Anul II, Curbe Algebrice Plane

POLYNOMIAL RINGS

1 Basic properties
Let R be a ring.

Definition 1.1 The ring of polynomials with coefficients in R, denoted

R[X], is the set of formal sums

f = a0 + a1 X + . . . + an X n + . . .

with ai ∈ R (i ≥ 0), for which there exists n0 ∈ N such that an = 0 for all
n > n0 .

The degree of the polynomial f is

deg f = max{n ∈ N / an 6= 0} .

In this case adeg f is called the dominant coefficient. If this is 1, the

polynomial is called monic.
It is easy to see that R[X] is naturally endowed with a ring structure,
and is an integral domain if R is. We can define inductively the ring of
polynomials in several variables:

R[X1 , X2 , . . . , Xn ] = R[X1 , X2 , . . . , Xn−1 ][Xn ] .

Such a polynomial has a unique expression

X
f= a(i) X (i)

where (i) = (i1 , . . . , in ), X (i) = X1i1 · . . . · Xnin are monomials and a(i) ∈ R,
only finitely many being not zero. The degree of f is

deg f = max{i1 + . . . + in / a(i) 6= 0} .

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We also have deg(f g) = deg f + deg g.
If, for all a(i) 6= 0, i1 + . . . + in = m, we say that the polynomial f is
homogenous of degree m. Any polynomial has a unique expression

f = f0 + f1 + . . . + fm

with fi homogenous of degree i.

In other words, if we denote

R[X1 , X2 , . . . , Xn ]d = {f ∈ R[X1 , X2 , . . . , Xn ] / deg f = d} ∪ {0} ,

then
R[X1 , X2 , . . . , Xn ] = ⊕d≥0 R[X1 , X2 , . . . , Xn ]d ,
R[X1 , X2 , . . . , Xn ]0 = R and R[X1 , X2 , . . . , Xn ]d is a R-module for all d > 0.
That is, R[X1 , X2 , . . . , Xn ] is a graduated ring.

Proposition 1.2 Let k be an infinite field. A polynomial f ∈ k[X1 , X2 , . . . , Xn ]

is homogeneous of degree d if and only if

f (λx1 , λx2 , . . . , λxn ) = λd f (x1 , x2 , . . . , xn ) (1.1)

for all λ ∈ k and x1 , x2 , . . . , xn ∈ k.

Proof. The condition is obviously necessary.

Let now f = f0 + f1 + . . . + fd with fi homogenous of degree i. Then

f (λx1 , λx2 , . . . , λxn ) = f0 + λf1 (x1 , x2 , . . . , xn ) + . . . + λd fd (x1 , x2 , . . . , xn ) .

Then (1.1) implies

f0 +λf1 (x1 , x2 , . . . , xn )+. . .+λd−1 fd−1 (x1 , x2 , . . . , xn )+λd (f0 +f1 +. . .+fd−1 ) = 0

for all λ ∈ k and x1 , x2 , . . . , xn ∈ k. As k is an infinite field, it follows that

f0 = 0, . . . , fd−1 = 0, f = fd so f is homogeneous.
If R is a unique factorization domain, than R[X1 , X2 , . . . , Xn ] is also a
unique factorization domain. So every non-zero polynomial can be factored
uniquely, up to invertible elements of R and ordering of factors, into a product
of irreducible elements. Moreover R[X1 , X2 , . . . , Xn ] is an euclidean ring.

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 In particular, this is true for k[X1 , X2 , . . . , Xn ] for any field k. The quo-
tient field of k[X1 , X2 , . . . , Xn ] is called the field of rational functions in
n variables over k and is denoted k(X1 , X2 , . . . , Xn ). The set
k[X1 , X2 , . . . , Xn ]+ = {f ∈ k[X1 , X2 , . . . , Xn ] / f = 0 or f0 = 0}
is an ideal in k[X1 , X2 , . . . , Xn ], that will be called in the sequent the irrel-
evant ideal.
Proposition 1.3 Let k be an algebraically closed field and f ∈ k[X, Y ] ho-
mogenous of degree d. Then f can be written as a product of d linear poly-
nomials:
Yd
f= (αi X + βi Y )
i=1

αi , βi ∈ k (i ∈ {1, . . . , d}).
Proof. Let n ∈ N be maximal such that Y n divides the polynomial f .
Then f can be written:
f = Y n ad−n X d−n + ad−n−1 X d−n−1 Y + . . . + a0 Y d−n

with ad−n 6= 0. Then

 d−n !
X
f = Y d ad−n + . . . + a0 .
Y

Let t = X Y
. As the field k is algebraically closed, the polynomial ad−n td−n +
. . . + a0 decomposes in linear terms, and the proposition follows.
Example 1.4 X 3 + X 2 Y + XY 2 + Y 3 = (X + Y )(X + iY )(X − iY )
 2   
4 2 3 3 2 4 5 6 6 X 1 X X
4X Y + 4X Y + 5X Y + 4XY + Y = 4Y + +i −i
Y 2 Y Y
= Y 2 (2X + Y )2 (X + iY )(Xi Y )
The following theorem is a classic and shall be extensively used:
Theorem 1.5 (Hilbert Basis Theorem) If the ring R is noetherian, then
the ring R[X] is also noetherian.
It follows that if R is a noetherian ring, then R[X1 , . . . , Xn ] is also noethe-
rian.

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2 Deriving a polynomial
The following proposition is pretty obvious:
Proposition 2.1 i ∈ {1, . . . , n}. There exists a unique function

∂Xi : R[X1 , . . . , Xn ] −→ R[X1 , . . . , Xn ]

verifying the properties:

 all a ∈ R;
(i) ∂Xi (a) = 0 for
1 if j = i
(ii) ∂Xi (Xj ) = ;
0 if j 6= i
(iii) ∂Xi (F + G) = ∂Xi F + ∂Xi G for all F, G ∈ R[X1 , . . . , Xn ];
(iv) ∂Xi (F G) = F ∂Xi G + G∂Xi F for all F, G ∈ R[X1 , . . . , Xn ].
The function ∂Xi is called the derivative by respect to Xi . We shall
∂F
also write ∂Xi F = FXi or ∂Xi F = ∂X i
. The following properties are easy:

1. (aF + bG)X = aFX + bGX , a, b ∈ R.

2. F (G1 , . . . , Gn )X = ni=1 FXi (G1 , . . . , Gn )(Gi )X .

P


3. (FXi )Xj = FXj Xi for all i, j ∈ {1, . . . , n}.

Proposition 2.2 (Euler) If F ∈ R[X1 , . . . , Xn ] is homogenous of degree d,

then n
X
dF = Xi FXi .
i=1

Proof. Proposition 1.2 states that

F (λx1 , λx2 , . . . , λxn ) = λd F (x1 , x2 , . . . , xn )

for all λ ∈ k and x1 , x2 , . . . , xn ∈ R. By deriving this relation by respect to

λ we obtain
n
X
xi FXi (λx1 , λx2 , . . . , λxn ) = dλd−1 F (x1 , x2 , . . . , xn ) .
i=1

But FXi are homogeneous polynomials of degree d − 1 for all i ∈ {1, . . . , n}.
By applying once again the relation (1.1) the result follows.

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3 Resultant and discriminant
Definition 3.1 Let R be a ring (commutative, with unity) and F, G ∈ R[X],
F = a0 X m + . . . + am ; G = b0 X n + . . . + bn .
We call resultant of the polynomials F and G the following determinant
with mn lines and mn columns:
 
 a0 a1 . . . . . . . . . am 
 

 a0 a1 . . . . . . . . . am 


 . . . . . . . . . . . . 

 a 0 a 1 . . . . . . . . . a m

∈R
RF,G =  (3.2)
 b0 b1 . . . . . . b n



 b0 b1 . . . . . . bn 


 ... ... ... ... 

 b0 b1 . . . . . . bn 
where the coefficients of F are on the first n lines and the coefficients of G
on the remaining m lines.
Theorem 3.2 Suppose that the ring R is an unique factorisation domain
and that a0 6= 0, b0 6= 0. Then the following conditions are equivalent:
1. The polynomials F and G have a common factor of degree at least 1.
2. There exist two polynomials ϕ, ψ ∈ R[X], deg ϕ < deg F , deg ψ <
deg G such that
ψF + ϕG = 0 .

3. RF,G = 0.
Proof. (1) ⇒ (2) If F and G have the common factor D ∈ R[X], deg D ≥
1, then F = F1 D and G = G1 D with deg F1 < deg F , deg G1 < deg G. Then
we can take ϕ = F1 and ψ = −G1 .
(2) ⇔ (3) It suffices to prove the equivalence in the context of K[X]
where K = F rR is the field of fractions of R. The statement over R follows
after the elimination of the denominators.
Let V be the linear space over K whose elements are the polynomials
P ∈ K[X] of degree at most m + n − 1. If we look at the following elements
of V :
X n−1 F, X n−2 F, . . . , XF, F, X m−1 G, X m−2 G, . . . , XG, G

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then the lines of the determinant giving RF,G contain respectively their com-
ponents by respect to the basis {X m+n−1 , . . . , X, 1} of V . So RF,G = 0 if
and only if these elements of V are linearly dependent, that is, there exist
a0 , a1 , . . . , an−1 , b0 , b1 , . . . , bm−1 ∈ K such that

a0 X n−1 F +a1 X n−2 F +. . .+an−1 F +b0 X m−1 G+b1 X m−2 G+. . .+bm−1 G = 0 .

Then we can take

ϕ = b0 X m−1 + b1 X m−2 + . . . + bm−1

ψ = a0 X n−1 + a1 X n−2 + . . . + an−1