For a modulus of a number field , the multiplicity at a finite place is the exponent of its prime ideal in . At a real Archimedean place it is one if that place occurs in and zero otherwise. Complex places have multiplicity zero. These effective modulus multiplicities encode congruences and positivity requirements in the ray class group.
Narrow ideal class group Created 2026-10-06 Updated 2026-10-14
The narrow ideal class group of a number field is the group of nonzero fractional ideals modulo principal fractional ideals generated by totally positive elements. It is the ray class group for the modulus consisting of all real Archimedean places and trivial finite part. The forgetful map to the ordinary ideal class group is surjective, with kernel under the unit signature map.
A normalization is important here. I use the covolume-one theta function of a fractional ideal, for which the requested limit is , and also give the formula for the unnormalized Gaussian theta sum.
Let , let , and choose one field embedding for each Archimedean place. The Minkowski embedding of a number field identifies
with a real inner product space having
Its Euclidean Lebesgue measure is . With this convention, the covolume of a fractional ideal lattice is
where is the field discriminant and is the positive absolute norm of a fractional ideal. Thus the Euclidean lattice has covolume . Define
This Gaussian theta sum converges absolutely whenever every .
The trace dual of a fractional ideal is
Here is the inverse different. Since , we have . There is a subtle distinction between the trace pairing and the positive inner product: the dual lattice of is , where the bar conjugates the complex coordinates and fixes the real ones. Indeed,
Consequently . Coordinatewise complex conjugation preserves the weighted squared lengths in the Gaussian theta sum.
Here are the precise analytic formulas used in the proof. For a Schwartz function on , take the Fourier transform to be
For a full Euclidean lattice of covolume , the Poisson summation formula for a Euclidean lattice is
For , the Gaussian Fourier transform, applied in orthonormal real coordinates, gives
More generally, for a real positive-definite matrix that is symmetric. Each complex coordinate contributes two real coordinates, which explains its exponent .
Apply the Poisson summation formula for a Euclidean lattice to , whose covolume is , and use the preceding description of its dual lattice. The anisotropic theta functional equation is
For comparison, the unnormalized Gaussian theta sum
has the functional equation
and its corresponding limit is rather than . Explicitly, our normalization is .
For the small-parameter asymptotic of a lattice theta sum, means that every coordinate tends to zero. In , the zero lattice vector contributes . Every nonzero vector contributes a term tending to zero. Once every , all these terms are bounded by the summable Gaussian theta sum . The dominated convergence theorem therefore gives . Using the anisotropic theta functional equation,
The condition that every coordinate tends to zero matters; alone would not justify this argument.
Here a divisor is a modulus of a number field, rather than an arbitrary real-weighted divisor. Write
where is a nonzero integral ideal, the finite multiplicities are nonnegative integers, and is a set of real Archimedean places. The multiplicity of a place in a modulus is at the finite place corresponding to , is at a real place in , and is at every other infinite place. In particular complex places have multiplicity .
Let be the group of nonzero fractional ideals prime to . Put
Let consist of the principal ideals with . The generalized ideal class group is the ray class group
Let be the unit group, let be the group of ray units, and define the residue and signature group of a modulus
The first factor is omitted when . There is a group homomorphism recording the unit's finite residues and its signs. Its kernel is .
Let consist of all principal fractional ideals prime to , and put . The two short exact sequences are
and
For the first short exact sequence, weak approximation for number fields realizes every choice of finite unit residues and real signs by some prime to . Send that data to the class of in . Changing without changing its residues and signs multiplies it by an element of , so the map is well-defined. Its kernel consists exactly of data arising from units: if with , then . This gives . For the second short exact sequence, forget the ray conditions. Its kernel is , and weak approximation for number fields gives a representative prime to for every ideal class. These are the two parts of the ray class exact sequence.
For , the ring of integers of a quadratic field is . The finite modulus is trivial and both real places occur, so is the narrow ideal class group and . The two field embeddings send to and . The given unit is positive at both places, since ; the unit is negative at both. Thus the unit signature map has image
The given ideal class group has order . The second short exact sequence therefore gives
To determine the group structure, retain the ideal that generates the ordinary ideal class group. We have : all generators , and lie in , while
puts in . Since is totally positive, in the narrow ideal class group. Its image in the ordinary ideal class group is nontrivial, so has order exactly .
The class of the principal ideal is a nontrivial element of . Its two signs are , and multiplying by a unit can only reverse both signs or neither, so no generator of this ideal is totally positive. Its square is , which does have a totally positive generator. Thus is another element of order , distinct from because its ordinary ideal class is trivial. These two elements are independent and generate all four classes. Consequently
The nontrivial ordinary ideal class already has a lift of order , so the extension in the second short exact sequence splits; it cannot be cyclic of order .
If has degree , then at every Archimedean embedding
Indeed, the factor of the defining product belonging to that Archimedean place shows ; using the exact local degree only improves this estimate. This proves the upper bound. Apply it to and use to obtain the lower bound. This is the Liouville height inequality.