Factoring Polynomials over Finite Fields with Linear Galois Groups: An Additive Combinatorics Approach

TL;DR

This paper presents a deterministic algorithm under GRH for factoring polynomials over finite fields with linear Galois groups, utilizing additive combinatorics and introducing linear m-schemes to improve efficiency.

Contribution

It introduces a novel approach combining additive combinatorics and linear m-schemes to improve polynomial factorization algorithms over finite fields with specific Galois groups.

Findings

Algorithm runs in nearly polynomial time for large sets

Improves upon Evdokimov's algorithm under GRH

Applicable to general Galois groups with recent algorithm integration

Abstract

Let $\tilde{f}(X)\in\mathbb{Z}[X]$ be a degree-$n$ polynomial such that $f(X):=\tilde{f}(X)\bmod p$ factorizes into $n$ distinct linear factors over $\mathbb{F}_p$. We study the problem of deterministically factoring $f(X)$ over $\mathbb{F}_p$ given $\tilde{f}(X)$. Under the generalized Riemann hypothesis (GRH), we give an improved deterministic algorithm that computes the complete factorization of $f(X)$ in the case that the Galois group of $\tilde{f}(X)$ is (permutation isomorphic to) a linear group $G\leq \mathrm{GL}(V)$ on the set $S$ of roots of $\tilde{f}(X)$, where $V$ is a finite-dimensional vector space over a finite field $\mathbb{F}$ and $S$ is identified with a subset of $V$. In particular, when $|S|=|V|^{\Omega(1)}$, the algorithm runs in time polynomial in $n^{\log n/(\log\log\log\log n)^{1/3}}$ and the size of the input, improving Evdokimov's algorithm. Our result also applies to a general Galois group $G$ when combined with a recent algorithm of the author. To prove our main result, we introduce a family of objects called linear $m$-schemes and reduce the problem of factoring $f(X)$ to a combinatorial problem about these objects. We then apply techniques from additive combinatorics to obtain an improved bound. Our techniques may be of independent interest.