Salem numbers from a class of star-like trees (Q2344338)

In the present paper the authors provide precise information on the decomposition of Coxeter polynomials of certain star-like trees. This has applications in the exhibition of large Salem factors and provides convergence properties on their dominant roots. Let \(a_0,a_1,a_2\in\mathbb{Z}\) such that \(a_2>a_1>a_0>1\) and \((a_0,a_1,a_2)\neq(2,3,t)\) for all \(t\in\{4,5,6\}\). Furthermore let \(T:=T(a_0,a_1,a_3)\) be the star like tree with three arms of \(a_0-1\), \(a_1-1\) and \(a_2-1\) edges, and let \(\lambda\) be its largest eigenvalue. Then, the authors show that \(\tau>1\) defined by \[ \sqrt{\tau}+1/\sqrt{\tau}=\lambda \] is a Salem or a quadratic Pisot root of the Coxeter polynomial \(R_T\) of \(T\). Moreover, if \(S\) is the minimal polynomial of \(\tau\), then one can write \[ R_T(x)=S(x)C(x), \] where \(C\) is a product of cyclotomic polynomials of order bounded by \(420(a_2-a_1+a_0-1)\), whose roots have multiplicity bounded by an effectively computable constant \(m(a_0,a_2-a_1)\). The authors consider two consequences of their result. First, assume that \(a_0\) as well as \(a_2-a_1\) are constant and put \(S_{a_1}=R_{T(a_0,a_1,a_2)}\) for convenience. If one determines the set \(\{k: k\leq 420(a_2-a_1+a_0-1), S_{a_1}(\zeta_k)=0\}\) for all \(a_1\leq K\) then one knows exactly the divisors of \(S_{a_1}\) which could be used for a better bound on the degree of the Salem number. The second consequence is that Salem numbers of arbitrary large degree can be exhibited.