Minimum degree of the difference of two polynomials over~\({\mathbb Q}\), and weighted plane trees (Q478553)

Let \(\alpha=(\alpha_1,\dots,\alpha_p)\), \(\beta=(\beta_1,\dots,\beta_q)\) be fixed partitions of a positive integer \(n\), put \(d=\gcd(\alpha_1,\dots,\alpha_p,\beta_1,\dots,\beta_q)\), and consider polynomials \(P(X),Q(X)\) with complex coefficients, having the form \[ P(X)=\prod_{j=1}^p(X-a_j)^{\alpha_j},\quad Q(X)=\prod_{j=1}^q(X-b_j)^{\beta_j}.\eqno(1) \] It has been shown by \textit{U. Zannier} [Acta Arith. 71, No. 2, 107--137; addendum ibid. 74, No. 4, 387 (1996) (1995; Zbl 0840.11015)] that under the assumption \[ p+q\leq 1+n/d\eqno(2) \] the degree of the difference \(R(X)=P(X)-Q(X)\) is \(\geq(n+1)-(p+q)\), and this bound is best possible. This generalized a result of \textit{H. Davenport} [Norske Vid. Selsk. Forhdl. 38, 86--87 (1965; Zbl 0136.25204)] dealing with the case \(\alpha_1=\cdots=\alpha_p=3\), \(\beta_1=\cdots=\beta_q=2\). The authors call the triple \(P(X),Q(X),R(X)\) a \textit{Davenport-Zannier triple} (\(DZ\)-triple), if \[ \deg R(X)=(n+1)-(p+q). \] They relate such triples to bicolored plane trees with vertices colored so that the ends of each edge have different colors, say black and white, and with positive weights attached to edges. The degree of a vertex is defined as the sum of weights of attached edges. It is shown that a \(DZ\)-triple with given \(\alpha,\beta\) exists if and only if there exists such a tree \(T\) with \(p\) black vertices with degrees \(\alpha_1,\dots,\alpha_p\), and \(q\) white vertices with degrees \(\beta_1,\dots,\beta_q\). The pair \(\alpha,\beta\) is called the passport of \(T\). The necessary and sufficient condition for the existence of \(T\) is shown to be given by the inequality (2) (Theorem 3.1), and in Theorem 4.1 a best possible lower bound is given for \(\deg R\) in the case, when the condition (2) is violated. These two results are equivalent to Theorem 1 in Zannier's paper but are essentially simpler and provide a nice example of the use of dessins d'enfants in the study of algebraic questions. The main result of the paper is contained in Theorem 5.4 which gives a classification of \textit{unitrees}, i.e., weighted bicolored plane trees satisfying (2) and having \(d=1\), for which there is no other such tree with the same passport. There are ten infinite series and ten sporadic unitrees, effectively described. In the last section several related questions are considered and several interesting examples are given.