On Mahler's inequality and small integral generators of totally complex number fields

Abstract

We improve Mahler's lower bound for the Mahler measure in terms of the discriminant and degree for a specific class of polynomials: complex monic polynomials of degree $d\ge 2$ such that all roots with modulus greater than some fixed value $r\ge 1$ occur in equal modulus pairs. We improve Mahler's exponent $\frac{1}{2d-2}$ on the discriminant to $\frac{1}{2d-3}$. Moreover, we show that this value is sharp, even when restricting to minimal polynomials of integral generators of a fixed not totally real number field. An immediate consequence of this new lower bound is an improved lower bound for integral generators of number fields, generalising a simple observation of Ruppert from imaginary quadratic to totally complex number fields of arbitrary degree.

To appear in Acta Arithmetica