Specifying attracting cycles for Newton maps of polynomials

We show that for any set of n distinct points in the complex plane, there exists a polynomial p of degree at most n+1 so that the corresponding Newton map, or even the relaxed Newton map, for p has the given points as a super-attracting cycle. This improves the result in Plaza and Romero [6], which shows how to find such a polynomial of degree 2n. Moreover, we show that in general one cannot improve upon degree n+1. Our methods allow us to give a simple, constructive proof of the known result that for each cycle length n2 and degree d3, there exists a polynomial of degree d whose Newton map has a super-attracting cycle of length n.