Past exam of the mathematics course of the University of Cambridge 2018 iii Paper 123 3 a Solution Created 2026-10-03 Updated 2026-10-05
The only possible rational roots of the monic cubic are , and neither is a root. Thus is irreducible. The discriminant of a depressed cubic givesIt is not a rational square. By the permitted cubic discriminant criterion, the splitting field has Galois group , degree six, and contains its quadratic subfield generated by . Consequently
For a rational prime , the reduction of is separable because its discriminant is a unit at . Choose a finite extension of in which that reduction splits. Part 1(a) lifts it to an unramified extension of , and the Hensel lemma lifts all the simple roots into that extension. The local splitting field is therefore unramified over . In particular all primes of above such are unramified.
At , the supplied simple residue root lifts to a root in . The remaining factor is quadratic, so the local splitting field has degree at most two over . It contains , which is not a square in because its valuation is odd. It is therefore exactly . This is also the completion of at its unique prime above : the polynomial is Eisenstein there. Thusfor a prime above . All the other primes above it give the same local conclusion by Galois conjugacy. The relative extension is therefore unramified at as well; indeed that prime splits completely in .
We use the Hilbert class field theorem: for a number field , its maximal everywhere unramified abelian extension is finite, contains every such extension, and satisfies , so . The cyclic degree-three extension just constructed is contained in . ThereforeThis is the unramified cubic extension of Q of square root minus fifty-nine; only divisibility of the class number, rather than its exact value, is needed here.
Past exam of the mathematics course of the University of Cambridge 2018 iii Paper 123 4 b Solution Created 2026-10-03 Updated 2026-10-05
The polynomial is Eisenstein at , so a root generates a totally ramified cubic field and is a uniformizer of . Its cubic discriminant isIts -adic valuation is , so it is not a square. The cubic discriminant criterion therefore givesThe unique quadratic subfield is generated by . Since the permitted square root is in , this subfield isIt is totally ramified of degree two, by the Eisenstein polynomial . The ramification index of is divisible by both the index of and the index of . Since the whole degree is , it follows thatIn particular .
We use the following standard facts about totally ramified extensions: every uniformizer generates the valuation ring over the base valuation ring, and for a totally ramified Galois extensionThus we can use the uniformizer criterion for lower ramification groups. Put . Since and ,is a uniformizer of .
Let be the three roots. The Galois group acts transitively on their unordered pairs and preserves the valuation, so all differences between distinct roots have the same valuation . The discriminant identity giveshence . Thus, for any , either or has valuation .
A nontrivial three-cycle fixes , since it fixes the quadratic subfield, and sends to a different root. Also : write the sum as , whose two terms have unequal valuations . ThereforeA transposition changes the sign of . ConsequentlyThe numerator has valuation : it is plus terms of strictly higher valuation if the root changes, and exactly if the root is fixed. Thus every transposition has . We conclude that the ramification groups of the splitting field of T3 minus 3T plus 3 over Q3 are
As an independent check, the cubic field has and different exponent . The extension is tamely totally ramified of degree two, so its different exponent is . The different in a tower gives , agreeing with the ramification sum .