On Shifted Eisenstein Polynomials

Abstract

We study polynomials with integer coefficients which become Eisenstein polynomials after the additive shift of a variable. We call such polynomials shifted Eisenstein polynomials. We determine an upper bound on the maximum shift that is needed given a shifted Eisenstein polynomial and also provide a lower bound on the density of shifted Eisenstein polynomials, which is strictly greater than the density of classical Eisenstein polynomials. We also show that the number of irreducible degree $n$ polynomials that are not shifted Eisenstein polynomials is infinite. We conclude with some numerical results on the densities of shifted Eisenstein polynomials.