Counting degenerate polynomials of fixed degree and bounded height (Q495309)

A polynomial \(f\in \mathbb Z[X]\) is called degenerate if it has two roots \(a\neq b\) with \(a/b\) being a root of unity. The authors consider the set \(S_n(H)\) of degenerate monic polynomials of degree \(n\geq2\) and height \(\leq H\) and establish the bounds \[ H^{n-2}\ll |S_n(H)|\ll H^{n-2} \] for \(n\geq 4\), and the equalities \[ |S_2(H)| = 2H +2\left(\left[\sqrt H\right]+\left[\sqrt{H/2}\right]+\left[\sqrt{H/3}\right]\right) \] and \[ |S_3(H)| = (4+o(1))H\log H. \] They show also that if \(I_n(H)\) denotes the number of irreducible polynomials in \(S_n(H)\), then \[ H^{n/p}\ll I_n(H)\ll H^{n/p}, \] where \(p\) is the smallest prime divisor of \(n\). Similar results are obtained also for non-monic polynomials.