On the largest degree of an irreducible factor of a polynomial in \(\mathbb{F}_q[X]\) (Q1382695)

Let \(\Delta(f)\) be the largest degree of the irreducible factors of an \(f\in{\mathbb F}_q^*[X]\), the set of monic polynomials over a finite field \({\mathbb F}_q\), and \(L(\sigma)\) the greatest length of the cycles of a \(\sigma\in{\mathbb S}_n\), the symmetric groups of order \(n\). It is proved in the paper that if \(\Delta_n=q^{-n}\sum_{\text{ deg}(f)=n}\Delta(f)\) and \(L_n=(n!)^{-1}\sum_{\sigma\in {\mathbb S}_n}L(\sigma)\), then \(\Delta_n-L_n\ll \sqrt{n/q\log n}\). The proof is based on a probabilistic approach in which the distribution of the cycle lengths of a random permutation is modeled by the conditional distributions of Poissonian random variables, and the distribution of the degrees of irreducible factors of a random polynomial is approximated by a Poissonian one.