Calculating the Galois group of an (irreducible) quintic

Here are some general facts about Galois groups of irreducible quintics.

  • There are five transitive subgroups of $S_5$ up to conjugacy: $S_5, A_5, D_5, C_5, F_{20}$. All should be familiar to you except possibly the last one, which is the Frobenius group of invertible affine linear transformations $x \mapsto ax + b$ on $\mathbb{F}_5$.
  • Of these five, only $S_5$ and $F_{20}$ lie outside $A_5$. Thus if the discriminant is a square, the Galois group must be one of $A_5, D_5, C_5$, and otherwise the Galois group must be one of $S_5, F_{20}$.
  • $S_5$ is the only one of these groups containing a transposition. Indeed, a more general statement is true: if a transitive subgroup of $S_n$ contains a transposition and a $p$-cycle for some prime $p > \frac{n}{2}$, then it must be $S_n$. See, for example, these notes by Keith Conrad.

Edit: Ah, I see in the comments that the polynomial is reducible. That explains it, then.


Here's a general theorem that may help: If $f$ is an irreducible rational polynomial of prime degree $p$ with exactly two non-real roots, then the Galois group of $f$ is the full symmetric group $S_p$.