is the monic polynomial whose roots are the primitive th roots of unity. It belongs to and is irreducible over .
Partitioning the roots of by their exact orders givesInductively, the product over proper divisors is a monic polynomial in . Division of by this monic polynomial stays in and has zero remainder, proving that .
Every cyclotomic polynomial is an irreducible polynomial over . If a monic irreducible factor contains a primitive root , then it also contains for every prime number : otherwise, writing , reduction modulo and the Frobenius endomorphism give . Some irreducible factor would then divide both and , giving a repeated factor of , contrary to separability of roots of unity. Iterating over the prime factors of every integer coprime to shows that contains all primitive th roots, so .
If the prime does not divide , then is square-free over because its derivative is coprime to it. Its factor is therefore separable modulo .
If is the splitting field of over a characteristic-zero field , choosing a primitive root gives an injectionIt is surjective exactly when is irreducible over .
A cyclotomic field is generated by a root of unity. If and is primitive, every -conjugate of is a power and already lies in . Thus is Galois, and its Galois group embeds in , so it is abelian.
Cyclotomic units include roots of unity and suitable ratios in cyclotomic fields. Compatible roots make these ratios norm-compatible along cyclotomic towers. Their closed norm-limit module is a concrete submodule of global units, and its local images generate the power series in the Iwasawa main conjecture.
A cyclotomic Euler system consists of units in auxiliary cyclotomic extensions satisfying compatible norm relations. Reducing at carefully chosen auxiliary primes and descending these relations bounds class-group modules. Combined with global unit-index formulas, this supplies an alternative route to the Iwasawa main conjecture.
Every field contains and is totally ramified over it at the prime above . The class number divisibility under total ramification therefore shows that its class number is divisible by three. Its ring of integers is not a principal ideal domain. The degrees strictly increase, giving infinitely many distinct examples.
The prime is totally ramified in , whose degree is . The displayed equality is an equality of ideals in its ring of integers of a number field, and the residue field is .
For an odd prime , the unique quadratic subfield of is the displayed field. A quadratic Gauss sum squares to , and the cyclic Galois group has a unique subgroup of index two.
For a prime , the cyclotomic polynomial of a primitive th root of unity isIt is irreducible over , so adjoining one root gives a field of degree .
For a primitive seventh root of unity ,where . Its four intermediate fields correspond to the four subgroups of the cyclic group .
The unique cubic subfield is the maximal real subfieldandIt is the fixed field of complex conjugation.
The Galois group of isIts only subfield degrees over are , and every subfield is Galois because this group is abelian.
The unique quadratic subfield of is
For a field inside a fixed algebraic closure, the maximal cyclotomic extension is the union of the fields generated by roots of unity.
The maximal cyclotomic extension of is a proper subfield of . Every finite subextension inside a cyclotomic field is Galois and abelian, whereas is not normal.
The maximal cyclotomic extension of is . A primitive th root of unity generates over , and these finite fields exhaust the algebraic closure.