Past exam of the mathematics course of the University of Cambridge 2015 iii Paper 26 2 ii Solution Created 2026-10-03 Updated 2026-10-06
A number-field completion is finite. Let be the given number field and its completion. Normalize its absolute value on a field so that the restriction to is : if , use . Changing the original absolute value by this positive power does not change its completion. The closure of in is an isometric copy of .
Take a -basis of and let be its -span in . Choose a maximal linearly independent subset of that finite spanning set. The compact-sphere proof of finite-dimensional non-Archimedean norm equivalence applies to this basis too, so is complete and therefore closed in . Since is dense in , it follows that . Hence
Every finite extension is obtained this way. Let be finite. Use its extending Non-Archimedean absolute value, whose completeness and uniqueness were proved above. In characteristic zero the primitive element theorem gives ; scaling by a power of , we may arrange that it is integral. Its monic minimal polynomial belongs to . If the degree is one, is already the completion of .
Otherwise choosewhere runs over the conjugates in an algebraic closure. Approximate the coefficients of by integers, obtaining a monic of the same degree. Since , sufficiently accurate approximation gives and makes . The strong form of Hensel lemma in produces a root of with .
For completeness, the required Krasner's lemma follows from the unique extension of an absolute value to a finite extension. In a finite Galois extension containing , every automorphism fixing is an isometry, andIf , this contradicts the choice of . Thus every automorphism fixing fixes , and Galois correspondence gives . Since , equality follows. In particular is irreducible over , and therefore over .
Put . It is a number field, and the closure of in contains , so is dense. LetEvery element of the ring of integers of a number field has absolute value at most one: otherwise its highest-degree term would strictly dominate all other terms of a monic integer equation. Thus reduction into the residue field of makes a prime ideal, and . The restriction of the valuation to is the valuation of this prime, up to normalization. Indeed, the localized discrete valuation ring maps into , its units have absolute value one, and its uniformizer has absolute value less than one. Density and completeness giveThis proves the local realization as a completion of a number field.
Past exam of the mathematics course of the University of Cambridge 2015 iii Paper 26 2 i Solution Created 2026-10-03 Updated 2026-10-06
Let be a -basis of , and define the coordinate normFirst an extending absolute value on a field is automatically non-Archimedean. Its values on integers are at most one, and the binomial theorem givesTaking th roots and letting proves the ultrametric inequality.
ConsequentlyThis bound makes continuous for the coordinate topology. The coordinate sphere is a closed subset of , hence compact. It contains no zero, so the continuous positive function attains a positive minimum there. Scaling any nonzero vector by a power of to put it in provesThis is the compact-sphere proof of finite-dimensional non-Archimedean norm equivalence.
A Cauchy sequence for is therefore Cauchy in each coordinate. The completeness of gives a coordinate limit, and the upper bound gives convergence to it for . Thus every extending absolute value makes complete.
For uniqueness, if and are two extensions, their respective bounds give constants withApply this to and use multiplicativity:Letting proves for every . This proves the unique extension of an absolute value to a finite extension without assuming that an arbitrary coordinate norm is multiplicative.