For every
, corresponding to the cyclotomic polynomial
of degree
there exists a unique polynomial
of degree
such that
where
denotes Euler's totient function.
The polynomials
may be referred to as cyclotomic pre-polynomials, since the
cyclotomic polynomials can be obtained from them via a well-defined mapping.
Alternatively, the cyclotomic pre-polynomial
can be defined as
where product is taken over all positive integers
that are relative prime to
.
For n up to 30, the cyclotomic pre-polynomials are:

Applications
It is well known that cyclotomic polynomials are monic polynomials with integer coefficients that are irreducible over the field of the rational numbers. From this fact it obviously follows that cyclotomic pre-polynomials are also irreducible over the field of the rational numbers.
Because of their irreducibility, both cyclotomic polynomials and cyclotomic pre-polynomials are useful in the irreducible factorization of polynomials.
Examples of their application for irreducible factorization:
1. Power functions defining complex roots of unity and their compositions
By the definition of cyclotomic polynomials, for any positive integer
Two examples of such compositions are
and
2. Chebyshev polynomials
For the purpose of factorization, it is more convenient to first consider the following polynomials before factoring the original Chebyshev polynomials
and
.
Vieta-Lucas polynomial is defined by
for which we also have
and the Vieta-Fibonacci polynomial is defined by
for which we also have
The irreducible factorization of these polynomials are ase follows.
and
Now, it follows directly that the Chebyshev polynomials
and
can be factorized as follows:
and
By similar methods, we find that the third- and fifth kind Chebyshev polynomials,
and
can be factorized as follows:
and
3. Factorization of shifted Chebyshev polynomials
Slightly different formulas hold depending on the parity of
.
For odd
we have
and
while for even
we have
and
Pseudo cyclotomic pre-polynomials
In formulas for the trigonometric functions of multiple angles, replacing the trigonometric functions with the corresponding hyperbolic functions often yields expressions that remain valid, either unchanged or with only minor modifications. For example:
In some other cases, the formula should be modified by replacing all coefficients of the polynomial
or
with their absolute values.
Let us denote the resulting polynomials by
and
, respectively, which can also be formally defined by formulas
and similarly
With this notation it can be shown that for odd
,
while for even
,
holds.
An example with the use of
is as follows: for odd
,
while for even
,
holds.
The factors in the irreducible factorizations of
and
are not cyclotomic pre-polynomials, but rather another type of polynomial resembling them, which we call pseudo cyclotomic pre-polynomials and denote by
.
Their definition is as follows:
or alternatively
for any
integer;
or alternatively
for any odd
greater than
.
The expression
cannot be interpreted in the case when
Similarly to the cyclotomic polynomials and cyclotomic pre-polynomials,
the pseudo cyclotomic pre-polynomials also have only integer coefficients
and are irreducible over the field of the rational numbers.
For n up to 27, the pseudo cyclotomic pre-polynomials are:

From all of the above, we obtain the irreducible factorization of
and
as follows:
and
For several publicatons using cyclotomic pre-polynomials, see
[1],
[2].
[3],
[4].
- ^ Kearnes, K., Kiss, E. and Szendrei, Á. (2010): Gauss-egészek és Dirichlet tétele, 2. rész
(Gaussian integers and Dirichlet's theorem, Part 2), in Hungarian, Középiskolai Matematikai és Fizikai Lapok (April 2010)
- ^ Kéri, Gerzson (2021): Compressed Chebyshev Polynomials and Multiple-Angle Formulas, Omniscriptum Publishing Company, ISBN 978-620-0-62498-7.
- ^ Kéri, G. (2022): The factorization of compressed Chebyshev polynomials and other polynomials related to multiple-angle formulas, Annales Universitatis Scientiarum Budapestinensis de Rolando Eotvos Nominatae Sectio Computatorica, 53 (2022) 93-108.
- ^ Kéri Gerzson (2025): Többszörös szögek szögfüggvényeit kifejező polinomok néhány fajtája direktben és faktorizáltan (Some types of polynomials expressing the trigonometric functions of multiple angles in a direct and factored form), in Hungarian, Matematikai Lapok, 25 (2020) issue 2, pp. 2-51.