Cyclic quartic field from a nested quadratic radical

ID: cyclic-quartic-field-from-a-nested-quadratic-radical

For a prime , this real number field is a Galois extension of degree four with cyclic Galois group. If , its minimal polynomial of an algebraic element is , irreducible by Eisenstein's criterion at . The other positive root belongs to the same field because and . Thus all four roots lie in the field, proving normality. The Galois automorphism sends to its negative and consequently sends to . It has order four, so the group is , rather than a product of two order-two groups.
The prime condition is used for irreducibility, while the square condition on supplies the missing conjugate inside the field. The example yields , the real subfield of the sixteenth cyclotomic field.

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