Galois Groups of Even Sextic Polynomials

Abstract

AbstractLet $f(x)=x^{6}+ax^{4}+bx^{2}+c$ be an irreducible sextic polynomial with coefficients from a field $F$ of characteristic $\neq 2$, and let $g(x)=x^{3}+ax^{2}+bx+c$. We show how to identify the conjugacy class in $S_{6}$ of the Galois group of $f$ over $F$ using only the discriminants of $f$ and $g$ and the reducibility of a related sextic polynomial. We demonstrate that our method is useful for producing one-parameter families of even sextic polynomials with a specified Galois group.