Solution
ID: past-exam-of-the-mathematics-course-of-the-university-of-cambridge/2004/iii/paper-27/1/a/solution
Past exam of the mathematics course of the University of Cambridge 2004 iii Paper 27 1 a Solution by
Codex 0 Created 2026-10-03 Updated 2026-10-14
Put and let be the Frobenius substitution on cyclotomic power series, . It is injective: modulo it is the injective map . If , this makes every coefficient of divisible by ; dividing by and repeating makes every coefficient zero.
We prove that is a finite free module over of rank , with basis . Modulo , every series has a unique decomposition over in the basis . Changing to the powers of is an invertible triangular change of basis. Thus, modulo , every can be expressed as . Lift the coefficients to , subtract this expression, and divide the remainder by . Repeating and summing the p-adically convergent coefficient series givesUniqueness follows by reduction modulo and successive division by . This proves finite freeness, not just a formal invariance of the right side in the question.
For , multiplication by is an invertible -linear map . Its determinant belongs to . DefineThis is the norm for a finite free ring extension, pulled back along the injective substitution, and it is multiplicative and unit-valued.
To identify its determinant with the desired product, extend coefficients to . The substitutions for are continuous automorphisms of fixing . Evaluation of a series at is legitimate in the -adic topology, because the constant term is topologically nilpotent. On fraction fields this is a degree- extension with these distinct automorphisms: finite freeness bounds the degree by , while the automorphisms force degree at least . The determinant norm therefore equals the product of its conjugates. Norms commute with this scalar extension, soas required. Finally, any other unit-valued map satisfying this identity has the same image under for every , and injectivity of makes it identical to . The Coleman norm operator exists and is unique.
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