On the monogenicity of power-compositional Shanks polynomials (Q6187371)

A monic irreducible polynomial \(f(X)\in {\mathbb Z}[X]\) of degree \(N\) is called monogenic if \(\{1,\theta,\theta^2,\ldots,\theta^{N-1}\}\) is a basis for the ring of algebraic integers of \({\mathbb K}={\mathbb Q}(\theta)\), where \(\theta\) is any root of \(f(X)\). In the paper under review the author takes a positive integer \(k\), writes \(S_k(X)=X^3-kX^2-(k+3)X-1\) and investigates the monogeneity of \(S_k(X^p)\) for certain primes \(p\) like the ones dividing the discriminant \((k^2+3k+9)^2\) of \(S_k(X)\). For example, assuming \(k\) is coprime to \(3\) (the author's result is a bit more general), the author shows that \(S_k(X)\) is monogenic if \(k^2+3k+9\) is squarefree. In addition, if \(p\) divides \(k^2+3k+9\), then also \(S_k(X^p)\) is monogenic. The author relates these problems with the notion of a \(k\)-Shanks prime which is a prime \(p\) for which the ternary recurrent sequence \(\{U_n\}_{n\ge 0}\) given by \(U_0=0,~U_1=0,~U_2=1\) and \(U_{n+3}=kU_{n+2}+(k+3)U_{n+1}+U_n\) for all \(n\ge 0\) has the same period modulo \(p\) as modulo \(p^2\). The proofs are ingenious and use Capelli's theorem and some basic facts from algebraic number theory.