Palindromic Polynomials over Finite Fields

Abstract

For any finite field $\mathbb{F}$ and any positive integer $n$ we count the number of monic polynomials of degree $n$ over $\mathbb{F}$ with nonzero constant coefficient and a self-reciprocal factor of any specified degree. An application is given for systems of linear equations over $\mathbb{F}$ of index $2$.