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One can simultaneously eliminate three terms from the general quintic using a quartic Tschirnhausen transformation. The 4th parameter of the quartic allows it to be done in radicals and details are in this post. But I found out (back in 2006) that a rational cubic Tschirnhausen transformation can do the same.

As usual, we start with the principal quintic,

$$y^5+\color{blue}{5}ry^2+\color{blue}{5}sy+t = 0\tag{1}$$

(with the "5" added for simplicity later) but with the cubic transformation,

$$y^3+ay^2+by+c =z(y+d)\tag{2}$$

where the extra parameter allows the same Bring-Jerrard "trick". Let $c=3r$, and eliminating $y$ between (1) and (2), we get the new quintic,

$c_0z^5+c_1z^4+c_2z^3+c_3z^2+c_4z+c_5=0\tag{3}$

where,

$$c_1 = -6 d r^2 + 4 d^3 s + 3 r s - d^2 t - (3 d^2 r - 4 d s + t)(b - a d)\tag{4}$$

and so on for the other $c_i$. Solve for $a$, substitute into $c_1=c_2=0$ and, after factoring, one gets the quadratic that is only in the unknown $d$,

$(18 r^2 s^2 - 9 r^3 t - 2 s t^2) + (-27 r^3 s + 16 s^2 t - 3 r t^2) d + (27 r^4 - 32 s^3 + 12 r s t)d^2 = 0\tag{5}$

Solving for $d$, one can then set $c_3=0$ which is only a cubic in the last unknown $b$,

$$e_0 b^3+e_1b^2+e_2b+e_3=0\tag{6}$$

thus solving $c_1=c_2=c_3=0$ in radicals.

Notes:

  1. The discriminant of the quadratic in (5) in fact has the same discriminant (up to a numerical factor) as the principal quintic.
  2. If the process is applied to higher degrees, then the equation in $d$ in (5) also rises in degree. For the principal sextic, it is already a quartic. Thus, the transformation is in radicals only for deg $\leq 6$.

Question:

How do we explain why the transformation exists from basic principles (in the same manner Sen did in the post mentioned above)?

Jam
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    Well, it's still classified as a Tschirnhausen transformation, $$y=\frac{g(x)}{h(x)}$$ of the equation $f(x)=0$. The Brioschi quintic also employs a rational Tschirnhausen, $$y=\frac{ax+b}{c^{-1}x^2-3}$$ – Tito Piezas III Dec 23 '13 at 16:27
  • I have derived the process of transformation of principal quintic into a Bring-Jerrard quintic by your transformation from power-sum formulas. Would that be qualified as an answer to this question? – Balarka Sen Dec 24 '13 at 16:43
  • It would be interesting to look at. – Tito Piezas III Dec 24 '13 at 19:47
  • Since only the roots are affected by the transformations, any two classes of transformations with equal number of parameters are equivalent to each other (excluding some degenerate values of the parameters). Your rational transformation has 4 parameters, so it should be equivalent to a quartic Tschirnhausen transformation. This point of view might hopefully be of use. – timur Sep 27 '19 at 20:13

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