Counting degenerate polynomials of fixed degree and bounded height

Abstract

In this paper, we give sharp upper and lower bounds for the number of degenerate monic (and arbitrary, not necessarily monic) polynomials with integer coefficients of fixed degree $n \ge 2$ and height bounded by $H \ge 2$. The polynomial is called degenerate if it has two distinct roots whose quotient is a root of unity. In particular, our bounds imply that non-degenerate linear recurrence sequences can be generated randomly.