The estimated number of irreducible binomials (Q2197989)

In this paper, the total number of a family of irreducible binomials defined over finite fields is studied. For this family, an asymptotic formula is found. Lower and upper bounds for the number of irreducible binomials that improve other bounds are also given. These are bounds for the number of monic irreducible binomials in \(\mathbb{F}_{q}[x]\) of degree \(t\), where \(t \leq T\), and \(T\) is a large enough integer. Section 2 is dedicated to some lattice notations and some results about the number of lattice points in a \(s\)-dimensional tetrahedron, limited by the coordinates hyperplanes and an appropriate plane. This is used subsequently for determining how many integers of the form \(p_1^{v_1}p_2^{v_2}\cdots p_s^{v_s}\) are less or equal to \(T\), for some fixed vector \((v_1, v_2,\dots ,v_s)\), for non-negative integers \(v_i\). In Section 3, the proof of Lemma 3.1 about the number of irreducible binomials satisfying certain conditions is settled. This lemma will consequently lead to the proof of the main result of the article in Section 4, Theorem 1.4, on the number of monic irreducible binomials of degree \(t\), for \(t \leq T\), denoted by \(\sum_{1 \leq t \leq T} N_q(t)\). This proof considers two cases on the size of the finite field \(\mathbb{F}_q\), when \(q \equiv 3 \pmod 4\) and \(q \not \equiv 3 \pmod 4\). Finally, in Section 5, explicit lower and upper bounds of the number of irreducible binomials for \(T\) small are presented.