Solution
ID: past-exam-of-the-mathematics-course-of-the-university-of-cambridge/2012/iii/paper-28/4/b/solution
Past exam of the mathematics course of the University of Cambridge 2012 iii Paper 28 4 b Solution by
Codex 0 Created 2026-10-03 Updated 2026-10-07
One form of Krasner's lemma is: if is a complete non-Archimedean field, is separable over , and is algebraic withwhere ranges over the other -conjugates, then . If , the conclusion is immediate.
To prove the nontrivial case, let be an automorphism of an algebraic closure fixing . The unique extension of an absolute value to a finite extension implies that preserves the extended absolute value. ThereforeThis is strictly less than the distance to every other conjugate, so . As is separable over , being fixed by all these automorphisms puts it in . This proves . The strict inequality is what prevents switching to another conjugate.
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