A remark on a theorem of Szegő (Q1127598)

A theorem of Szegő applied to a polynomial \(P\) implies that the Mahler measure \(\text{ M}(P)\) of \(P\) is obtained as the limit of the Euclidean norms \(\| PG\|\) of the polynomials \(PG\) when \(G\) runs over monic polynomials of arbitrarily large degree. A problem (posed by the reviewer) is to control the speed of the convergence to this limit. More precisely, denoting by \(I_m(P)\) the infimum of \(\| PG\|\), where \(G\) runs over monic polynomials of degree \(m\), one wants an estimate of the error between \(I_m(P)\) and \(\text{ M}(P)\). A first solution was given by \textit{J. Dégot} [J. Number Theory 62, 422-427 (1997; Zbl 0870.11066)] in the general case. Here the author considers the very interesting special case when \(P\) is square-free (Dégot's paper shows that the situation is very bad for polynomials with roots of high multiplicity). He also assumes that the polynomial has no reciprocal factor. Then he gets a very good estimate in terms of \(\text{ M}(P)\) and the discriminant of \(P\). The proof is very natural: it uses algebra in some Hilbert space.