Models, Modules and Abelian Groups, 235-248 © de Gruyter 2008 Root bases of polynomials over integral domains E.F Comelius Jr. and Phill Schultz Abstract. ‘The authors extend results on quotient groups derived from the evaluation of integral polynomials and power series to modules over integral domains. ‘They demonstrate that valuation points which form arithmetic, geometric. and hypergeometric series produce stacked bases and hence tractable quotient modules. Key words. Integral root basis, stacked bases, polynomials, power series, matrices, AMS classification. Primary: 13G0S, 13C13, 13P05, 13C05. Secondary: 1599, 20K25, 1 Background ‘The Vandermonde matrix of degree n 1 9 § v= a1), l net Bi where s = (39, #1,-.-,8n--1) is a sequence of elements of an integral domain D, can be viewed as the matrix whose columns are the values of the polynomials 1, 2,...,2"7! evaluated at the entries of s. Although a formula for the determinant of V is well known, det(V) IL (ss), Oxtcien— it is hardly obvious when the matrix is expressed in the foregoing format. However, when the standard basis of Dlar]n, the free D-module of polynomials of degree < n, is replaced by the basis, {1, # — 80, (a — 80)(@ — 81),-+-4(@— 80)(4 = 81) +++ (@~ 5n-2)}y the comesponding matrix of values is 1 0 0 0 1 s1~s0 0 0 pia] ss (s2— 40)(s2~ 81) 0 1 Sut — 80 (Snot ~ 80)(Sn—1— $1) + (Sat — $0)**° (Sn=1 ~ Sn-2), whose determinant is immediately obvious.236 E.F. Comelius Jr. and P. Schultz Since V and V’ represent the same valuation function with respect to different bases of D[}n and the transition matrix between these bases has determinant 1, V and V’ have equal determinants, although manifestly det(V’) is easier to compute, being the product of the diagonal elements. As.we shall see in Section 3 below, V and V’ are in fact similar matrices. Using bases of D[z], tailored to solve particular problems is a well-known tech- nique in algebra. In [CS08}, the authors used what we have termed the integral root basis of Z{e}q, the basis just used for V’ with D the integers and s; = i, to determine the structure of the factor group Z"/P,, where 2" denotes the group of n-tuples of in- tegers and P,, denotes the image of Z{z],, in Z* when the polynomials are evaluated at 0, 1,..., n—1. Evaluation of the integral root basis of Z/r]. produces strongly stacked bases (definitions below) of Z” and P,. In (CS07}, the evaluation of polynomials was extended to the evaluation of power series with respect (o the integral root basis of Z(2], and in {CSO8A] to polynomials and power scrics in several indeterminates. Other examples include (B74), in which Biggs employs the integral root basis (without denominating it as such) (o express complex chromatic polynomials for de- termining the number of vertex colorings of a finite graphy; [GMc69], in which Gunji ‘and MeQuillan also employ the integral root basis of Z{x) (again without the terminol- ogy); and [N95], in which Narkiewicz characterizes the polynomials over the rationals @, which map Z into Z. Other illustrative works include [CC97] and the numerous references therein, as well as [E06]. In order to produce meaningful factor groups, our evaluation images are rather sparse in the sense that the factor group Z,/’P, has order O!1!---(n— 1)! (or (n — 1)- superfactorial; see [SO7, Sequence A000178)). In the infinite case, the extension of P, is nowhere dense in the Baer-Specker group [CS07, CS08}, yielding a factor group of continuum cardinality. In contrast, the factor groups in most of the papers cited would prove to be trivial The purpose of this paper is to extend the methods of [CS07, CS08] to an arbitrary integral domain D through use of a generalization of the integral root basis to D(z}. ‘The main difficulties in applying these methods with D in place of Z lie in the facts that there is no natural ordering on D enabling us to attack the problem using the weapons of combinatorial theory, and that D may lack the arithmetic properties of Z which make the tools of number theory useful. Also absent ate the simple patterns which appear when integral polynomials are evaluated at fixed intervals. Nevertheless, some basic algebraic properties of Z(2], in particular the Lagrange in- terpolation theorem, do extend to (cr), enabling us to apply an extension of the integral root basis to the study of bases of the free D-module D" and particular submodules, 2 Notation and terminology D will denote an integral domain with 1, and K its field of fractions. ‘This paper concerns properties of the images under evaluation, at a set S of elements of D, of the polynomial module D[2] and of the power series module D/{z]]z (defined below). In particular, we are interested in how a choice of basis for the free D-module Di] affectsRoot bases of polynomials over integral domains 237 the evaluations of polynomials and power series. Since our results are trivial for fields, wwe shall assume also that D is infinite, Let N denote the natural numbers, starting with zero, and N* the positive integers. Forn € N+, denote by [n] the set {0,...,n — 1}. Let $= {s;: i € N} be a countable subset of distinct elements from D and let $, = {s; : i € [n]} denote the first n. elements of $ Let D™ C K™ denote the sets of n-tuples from D and K, respectively, the elements of which we view as column vectors to facilitate matrix-vector multiplication, in which the matrix acts from the left on the column vector to the right. K” is a vector space over KC and a module over D, and D” is a D-submodule of K*. Elements of D" or i” are denoted by boldface lower case letters and their components by the corresponding subseripted plaintext characters, for example b = (b; : i € [n]). In particular, the first nelements S,, of $ form the n-tuple (s9, 81,..-,n-1) € D*, which may be denoted by sa. Let Kz] and D{z] denote the rings of polynomials in the indeterminate x over K and D, respectively. Forn € N', Ka}, and D(z}, denote the polynomials of degree f(b) is a linear transformation of K[z], into K". If b € D”, the restriction of eval, to Diz}, is a module homomorphism into D" 2. Given a € K™ and a basis B = {bp(z), bi(e),..., bn1(2)} of Kf)n, Jet fa © K{x]q be the polynomial Ty ayb,(x). The map polyp : a> fa is a linear iransformation of K into K{|n. If B © D[e|a. the restriction of poly gto D” is a module homomorphism into D[z},. 3. Given a basis B for K[x], and f € K[2]q, the sequence of coefficients of f with respect to B is in K" and the map, coefa(f) : f ++ the sequence of coefficients of / with respect to B, is a linear transformation of K {a}, into A. In fact, the very definition shows that coefz and poly,, are mutual inverses. If BC Diz}, then coetg restricted to Dir], is a module homomorphism into D”, the inverse of the restriction of poly 5 We now address the question of the inverse of evah,. Let b € K” have n distinet entries. By Lagrange’s interpolation theorem, for each a © K™, there is a unique f © K[g],, such that evah,(f) = a. Denote this f by &, so that a > 2 is also a jinear transformation K” —» K a}q, in fact the inverse of eval. This result, however, does not have a counterpart in Dle|n, because if a, b € D*, €2 is in Kz}, but not necessarily in D[z],. This means that for all b € D®, the homomorphism eval, : D{ee|y + D* is monic but not in general epic. We also need notation for matrices. For m.a positive integer, we denote the rings of m x m matrices over D and K by M(m, D) and M(m, K), respectively. Similarly we denote the modules of w x w matrices over D and K by M(w,D) and M(w, K) and their respective rings of row-finite matrices by FM(w, D) and FM (w, K).