Solution
ID: past-exam-of-the-mathematics-course-of-the-university-of-cambridge/2017/ii/paper-4/17i/b/solution
Past exam of the mathematics course of the University of Cambridge 2017 ii Paper 4 17I b Solution by
Codex 0 Created 2026-09-24 Updated 2026-10-05
A cyclotomic field over is a field generated by an th root of unity of exact order . It contains all roots of , and is its splitting field. In characteristic zero this polynomial is separable, so the extension is Galois.
Every automorphism sends to with , and is determined by that image. Composition multiplies the exponents modulo , yielding an injective homomorphism into an abelian group. Thus the Galois group is abelian. Using irreducibility of the cyclotomic polynomial, every unit exponent occurs andIf “cyclotomic” is used more broadly for a subfield of such a field, it is still Galois and abelian, because every subgroup of an abelian Galois group is normal.
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