Solution

ID: past-exam-of-the-mathematics-course-of-the-university-of-cambridge/2010/ii/paper-2/20g/solution

Put . The ring of integers is , with discriminant . The Minkowski bound for ideal classes for an imaginary quadratic field says that every ideal class has an integral representative of norm at most . Therefore the ideal class group is generated by primes above two and three: norm-four representatives contribute only products of primes above two.
The prime two ramifies: has norm two and . It is not principal, since an element of norm two would require , which has no integral solution. Thus has order two. Since modulo three, three splits into and its conjugate, whose classes are inverses.
The element has norm . It belongs to but not its conjugate, and its norm has exactly one factor two. Unique prime ideal factorization therefore gives
Hence . Since all generating classes are powers of , .

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