Enumeration of a special class of irreducible polynomials in characteristic 2

Abstract

A-polynomials were introduced by Meyn and play an important role in the iterative construction of high degree self-reciprocal irreducible polynomials over the field F_2, since they constitute the starting point of the iteration. The exact number of A-polynomials of each degree was given by Niederreiter. Kyuregyan extended the construction of Meyn to arbitrary even finite fields. We relate the A-polynomials in this more general setting to inert places in a certain extension of elliptic function fields and obtain an explicit counting formula for their number. In particular, we are able to show that, except for an isolated exception, there exist A-polynomials of every degree.