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For a separable polynomial $f\in F[T]$ in characteristic two, the Vandermonde determinant of its roots is fixed by every Galois automorphism: root permutations change it only by a sign, and $-1=1$ in $F$. It therefore lies in $F$. Its square, multiplied by the square of the appropriate leading-coefficient power for a nonmonic polynomial, is the polynomial discriminant. Thus being a square does not detect containment of the Galois group in the alternating group. For example $T^2+T+1$ over ${\mathbb{F}}_2$ has discriminant one and Galois group $C_2$, while $A_2$ is trivial. The discriminant criterion for an alternating Galois group requires characteristic different from two.

A symmetric polynomial is unchanged by permutations of its variables. The Fundamental theorem of symmetric polynomials expresses it as a polynomial in the elementary symmetric polynomials. The square of the Vandermonde determinant is an important example.

The left side is an alternating polynomial of total degree one more than $\Delta (x)$. Dividing by the Vandermonde determinant gives a symmetric homogeneous polynomial of degree one, necessarily $a{\sum }_i{x}_i+bt$. At $t=0$, $a=1$; differentiation in $t$ and the Euler theorem for homogeneous functions give $b=\left(\genfrac{}{}{0ex}{}{m}{2}\right)$. Thus the identity holds as a polynomial identity, even at repeated coordinates. At shifted partition coordinates with $t=-1$, it proves the removable-corner recurrence in the hook-length formula.

For a nonnegative weight $w$ and monic polynomials $p_j$ of degree $j$, this determinant is ${\prod }_i\sqrt{w(x_i)}{\prod }_{i<j}(x_j-x_i)$. Its square is the product of the weights times the squared Vandermonde determinant. For normalized weighted polynomials it differs by the product of their norm factors.

The Weyl denominator is the alternating expression in the Weyl denominator formula. Its product form uses the Weyl vector $\rho$, half the positive-root sum. On a compact maximal torus, the factor $e^{\rho }$ has unit modulus; if it is only defined on a covering torus, the squared modulus still descends. Thus $|\Delta (t){|}^2={\prod }_{\alpha >0}|1-\alpha (t){|}^2$ is a globally defined density in the Weyl integration formula. For the unitary group an integer central shift gives the Vandermonde determinant $\det (z_i^{n-j})$, whose modulus is the same.

For the unitary group, the diagonal maximal torus has coordinates $z_i=e^{i{\theta }_i}$ and Weyl group $S_n$. The Weyl integration formula weights independent uniform angles by $n{!}^{-1}{\prod }_{i<j}|z_i-z_j{|}^2$. The Vandermonde determinant $\det (z_i^{n-j})$ has squared torus integral $n!$, by Fourier orthogonality. Multiplying an irreducible character of highest weight $\lambda$ by this determinant gives an alternating Laurent polynomial. Its leading alternant has coefficient one; character orthogonality for compact groups forces every other alternant coefficient to vanish. This yields the quotient $\det (z_i^{{\lambda }_j+n-j})/\det (z_i^{n-j})$.

Every length-$p$ sequence in the prime field ${\mathbb{F}}_p$ with sum zero, including sequences with repetitions, is the coordinatewise difference of two enumerations of that field. Apply the Combinatorial Nullstellensatz on $({\mathbb{F}}_p^{\ast }{)}^{p-1}$ to the product of the Vandermonde determinant in variables $x_i$ and its translate by the first $p-1$ sequence terms. The Dyson constant-term identity gives a nonzero top coefficient, and the zero-sum condition supplies the final missing field element. The argument includes $p=2$.