On square-free factorization of multivariate polynomials over a finite field

Abstract

In this paper we present a new deterministic algorithm for computing the square-free decomposition of multivariate polynomials with coefficients from a finite field. Our algorithm is based on Yun's square-free factorization algorithm for characteristic 0. The new algorithm is more efficient than existing, deterministic algorithms based on Musser's squarefree algorithm. We will show that the modular approach presented by Yun has no significant performance advantage over our algorithm. The new algorithm is also simpler to implement and it can rely on any existing GCD algorithm without having to worry about choosing “good” evaluation points. To demonstrate this, we present some timings using implementations in Maple (Char et al., 1991), where the new algorithm is used for Release 4 onwards, and Axiom (Jenks and Sutor, 1992) which is the only system known to the author to use an implementation of Yun's modular algorithm mentioned above.