Past exam of the mathematics course of the University of Cambridge 2010 iii Paper 24 4 c Solution Created 2026-10-03 Updated 2026-10-14
For , put . The polynomialis Eisenstein at . It gives , total ramification, and . Also : in the power basis, terms have valuations in different residue classes modulo , so cannot cancel at the minimum. Integrality forces all integral.
Use part (b) with and differentiate the quotient at :The root of unity is a unit, while and . Hence the cyclotomic local different exponent isThis includes : that extension is trivial and the exponent is zero.
For , construct an unramified quadratic extension by lifting an irreducible quadratic polynomial over . Its residue field is . Each of its nonzero residue elements is a simple polynomial root of , so Hensel's lemma lifts all polynomial roots into . A primitive residue element lifts to a primitive mth polynomial root: its reduction already has order , and its mth power is one.
Such a primitive polynomial root cannot generate a proper subfield of , since its residue has order and therefore generates the quadratic residue extension. Thus is unramified of degree two. Part (a) gives . The reduced minimal polynomial of an algebraic element has degree two and is separable, so its derivative at is a unit. Part (b) givesBoth answers use normalized discrete valuations on the top field.