Stable polynomials over finite fields (Q742883)

Let \(f\) be a polynomial of degree at least 2 with coefficients in a field \(\mathbb K\). We call \(f\in{\mathbb K}[X]\) \textit{stable} if all of its iterates \[ f^{(0)}(X)=X,\quad f^{(n)}(X)=f^{(n-1)}(f(X)),\quad n\geq 1 \] are irreducible over \(\mathbb K\). In the paper under review, the authors are concerned with the case of \({\mathbb K}\) being a finite field \({\mathbb F}_q\) with \(q\) elements, where \(q=p^s\) and \(p\) is an odd prime. The authors first give a summary on discriminants and resultants, and Weil's bound for character sums. Then, in Section 3, they give a \textit{necessary} condition for the stability of arbitrary polynomials over \({\mathbb F}_q\). This partially generalizes the quadratic polynomial case by \textit{R. Jones} and \textit{N. Boston} [Proc. Am. Math. Soc. 140, No. 6, 1849--1863 (2012; Zbl 1243.11115)]. In Section 4, they prove the non-existence of certain cubic polynomial for \(p=3\). In the last section, using Weil's bound for multiplicative character sums, the authors obtain an upper bound \(O(q^{d+1-1/{2\log(2d)}})\) for the number of stable polynomials of degree \(d\).