Counting irreducible factors of polynomials over a finite field (Q1210556)

For \(q\) a prime power let \(F_ q[x]\) denote the ring of polynomials over the finite field \(F_ q\) of order \(q\). In various applications such as the factorization of polynomials in a single indeterminate, it is often of interest to study or determine the number of polynomials with a given number of irreducible factors of a fixed degree. Here the authors consider these kinds of questions by determining (i) the total number of monic polynomials of fixed degree \(n\) in \(F_ q[x]\), with a specified number of irreducible factors of a fixed degree, and (ii) the average number of such irreducible factors, and the corresponding variance for a polynomial of degree \(n\) in \(F_ q[x]\). Their results are then applied to obtain estimates of the variance for the functions \(\Omega(f)\) and \(\omega(f)\), which count the total number and the number of distinct irreducible factors of any degree of a polynomial \(f\in F_ q[x]\).