[with patch] bug in polynomial root finding mod n

[was]

This was reported by michael to sage-devel on Nov 27, 2007. It's a genuine bug which gives incorrect mathematical results (hence the critical marking).

R=IntegerModRing(3^2)
A=PolynomialRing(R,'y')
y=A.gen()
f=10*y^2 - y^3 - 9;
f.roots(multiplicities=false)
///
[1, 0]

print [k for k in R if f(k) == 0]
///
[0, 1, 3, 6]

[cwitty]

In this case, the roots method tries to factor f and extract roots from the factorization:

sage: factor(f)
(8) * (y + 8) * y^2

I'm told that we need to check that the coefficient ring forms a unique factorization domain before using this strategy, but I don't know how to check that in Sage.

[was]

In this particular case, roots() is done by factoring modulo n then extracting the roots from the linear factors. That algorithm makes no sense directly in case of a non-integral domain (unique factorization is irrelevant -- what matters if that a product is 0 then at least 1 factor is). Use {{{R.is_integral_domain()}.

sage: f.factor()
(8) * (y + 8) * y^2

There is presumably another algorithm for finding roots that works given a factorization even over a non-integral domain. Probably we should list all zero-divisor products a*b = 0, then for each factor g_i(x) of the polynomial, find all y such g_1(y) = a, g_2(y) = b. Also, worry about the 8 factor out front!

For now a quick hack would be to just do a stupid for loop to find all roots in the non-integral-domain case -- at least that would be mathematically correct.

[mhansen]

For the IntegerModRing? case, we could probably do something with  http://www.shoup.net/ntl/doc/ZZ_pXFactoring.txt .

[cwitty]

I've attached a patch that only does root finding by factorization if the coefficient ring is an integral domain; so for this problem, it uses enumeration instead, and does find all four roots. I think that using a non-stupid root-finding algorithm here should be a separate ticket; that's an enhancement request, instead of a critical bug fix.

NOTE THAT THIS PATCH REQUIRES THAT PATCHES FROM #1270 AND #1273 ARE ALREADY APPLIED. This is just because #1273 happens to touch the same paragraph in the docstring of roots() that I needed to change for this patch, so I had to choose between depending on #1273 or conflicting with #1273. Since I hope and expect that #1273 will be applied for 2.8.15, I chose to depend on it; if #1273 is rejected, I'll upload a modified patch that doesn't depend on #1273.

[mhansen]

Looks good to me.

[mabshoff]

Merged in 2.8.15.alpha2.