Abstract. We study several related problems on polynomials with integer coefficients. This includes the integer Chebyshev problem, and the Schur problems on means of algebraic numbers. We also discuss interesting applications to the approximation by polynomials with integer coefficients, and to the growth of coefficients for polynomials with roots located in prescribed sets. The distribution of zeros for polynomials with integer coefficients plays an important role in all of these problems.Keywords. Polynomials, distribution of zeros, algebraic numbers.
Integer Chebyshev problemLet C n and Z n be the classes of algebraic polynomials of degree at most n, respectively with complex and with integer coefficients. Define the uniform norm on a compact set E ⊂ C byThe problem of minimizing the uniform norm on E by monic polynomials from C n is well known as the Chebyshev problem (see [8,20,30], etc.) In the classical case E = [−1, 1], the explicit solution of this problem is given by the monic Chebyshev polynomial T n (x) := 2 1−n cos(n arccos x) of degree n ∈ N. Using a change of variable, we extend this to an arbitrary interval [a, b] ⊂ R, so thatis a unique monic polynomial with real coefficients and the smallest uniform norm on [a, b] among all monic polynomials of exact degree n from C n . It is immediate thatThe Chebyshev problem and the Chebyshev polynomials penetrated far beyond the original area of application in analysis, and these ideas remain of fundamental importance, cf. [20]. Many connections and generalizations were found in various areas of approximation theory, complex analysis, special