A cyclotomic polynomial $\unicode[STIX]{x1D6F7}_{k}(x)$ is an essential cyclotomic factor of $f(x)\in \mathbb{Z}[x]$ if $\unicode[STIX]{x1D6F7}_{k}(x)\mid f(x)$ and every prime divisor of $k$ is less than or equal to the number of terms of $f.$ We show that if a monic polynomial with coefficients from $\{-1,0,1\}$ has a cyclotomic factor, then it has an essential cyclotomic factor. We use this result to prove a conjecture posed by Mercer [‘Newman polynomials, reducibility, and roots on the unit circle’, Integers12(4) (2012), 503–519].

We prove some congruences on sums involving fourth powers of central q-binomial coefficients. As a conclusion, we confirm the following supercongruence observed by Long [Pacific J. Math. 249 (2011), 405–418]:

$$\sum\limits_{k = 0}^{((p^r-1)/(2))} {\displaystyle{{4k + 1} \over {{256}^k}}} \left( \matrix{2k \cr k} \right)^4\equiv p^r\quad \left( {\bmod p^{r + 3}} \right),$$

Let $P\in \mathbb{F}_{2}[z]$ be such that $P(0)=1$ and degree $(P)\geq 1$. Nicolas et al. [‘On the parity of additive representation functions’, J. Number Theory73 (1998), 292–317] proved that there exists a unique subset ${\mathcal{A}}={\mathcal{A}}(P)$ of $\mathbb{N}$ such that $\sum _{n\geq 0}p({\mathcal{A}},n)z^{n}\equiv P(z)~\text{mod}\,2$, where $p({\mathcal{A}},n)$ is the number of partitions of $n$ with parts in ${\mathcal{A}}$. Let $m$ be an odd positive integer and let ${\it\chi}({\mathcal{A}},.)$ be the characteristic function of the set ${\mathcal{A}}$. Finding the elements of the set ${\mathcal{A}}$ of the form $2^{k}m$, $k\geq 0$, is closely related to the $2$-adic integer $S({\mathcal{A}},m)={\it\chi}({\mathcal{A}},m)+2{\it\chi}({\mathcal{A}},2m)+4{\it\chi}({\mathcal{A}},4m)+\cdots =\sum _{k=0}^{\infty }2^{k}{\it\chi}({\mathcal{A}},2^{k}m)$, which has been shown to be an algebraic number. Let $G_{m}$ be the minimal polynomial of $S({\mathcal{A}},m)$. In precedent works there were treated the case $P$ irreducible of odd prime order $p$. In this setting, taking $p=1+ef$, where $f$ is the order of $2$ modulo $p$, explicit determinations of the coefficients of $G_{m}$ have been made for $e=2$ and 3. In this paper, we treat the case $e=4$ and use the cyclotomic numbers to make explicit $G_{m}$.

We study transcendence properties of certain infinite products of cyclotomic polynomials. In particular, we determine all cases in which the product is hypertranscendental. We then use various results from Mahler’s transcendence method to obtain algebraic independence results on such functions and their values.

We study analytic properties of certain infinite products of cyclotomic polynomials that generalise some products introduced by Mahler. We characterise those that have the unit circle as a natural boundary and use associated Dirichlet series to obtain their asymptotic behaviour near roots of unity.

We give a simple proof of the value of the resultant of two Chebyshev polynomials (of the first or the second kind), values lately obtained by D. P. Jacobs, M. O. Rayes, and V. Trevisan.