Towards Randomized Testing of $q$-Monomials in Multivariate Polynomials

Given any fixed integer q ≥ 2, a q-monomial is of the format x1 i1 x s2 i2 · · · x st it such that 1 ≤ sj ≤ q − 1, 1 ≤ j ≤ t. q-monomials are natural generalizations of multilinear monomials. Recent research on testing multilinear monomials and q-monomials for prime q in multivariate polynomials relies on the property that Zq is a field when q ≥ 2 is prime. When q > 2 is not prime, it remains open whether the problem of testing q-monomials can be solved in some compatible complexity. In this paper, we present a randomized O(7.15) algorithm for testing q-monomials of degree k that are found in a multivariate polynomial that is represented by a tree-like circuit with a polynomial size, thus giving a positive, affirming answer to the above question. Our algorithm works regardless of the primality of q and improves upon the time complexity of the previously known algorithm for testing q-monomials for prime q > 7.