Write . The field trace gives a nondegenerate -bilinear trace pairing
The inverse different, or codifferent, is the trace-dual lattice
It contains , because the trace of an element integral over belongs to the integrally closed ring . It is stable under multiplication by : if and , then . Nondegeneracy of the trace pairing and finite generation of show that this trace dual is a finitely generated -module spanning . Therefore it is a fractional ideal of .
Its inverse
is the different ideal. Since , every such lies in ; hence is an integral ideal of .
The discriminant ideal is locally generated by
where is a local -basis of . Equivalently, it is the image of the determinant of the trace pairing
This formulation makes the definition independent of a basis, since changing a basis multiplies its discriminant by the square of the determinant of the change-of-basis matrix.
The asserted identity of ideals can be checked after localization at every nonzero prime ideal of . We may therefore assume that is a discrete valuation ring and choose a basis of . Let be its trace-dual basis, so ; this is a basis of . If , then
Thus the determinant measuring the inclusion is . The determinant description of the norm of a fractional ideal consequently gives
Localization then proves the equality over the original Dedekind domain.
Finally, the determinant-of-pairing map identifies the invertible -module with the discriminant ideal. Hence in the ideal class group
up to the harmless inverse caused by the convention used to identify invertible modules with fractional ideals. In either convention the class is a square.
The inverse different is
It is an -submodule of . Choose an integral basis of a finite-index free submodule of . Nondegeneracy of the trace pairing gives a dual -basis , and the codifferent lies between two finitely generated full -lattices obtained from these bases. It is therefore a fractional -ideal.
Every algebraic integer has integral trace, so . Consequently its inverse
is contained in . It is thus an integral -ideal, called the different ideal.
Let be a root of
The polynomial is Eisenstein at , so is totally ramified of degree three and . Its discriminant is
Its odd valuation makes nonsquare in , so the Galois group of an irreducible cubic shows that the splitting field has Galois group . The quadratic extension obtained by adjoining is ramified, so is totally ramified. Therefore
because the wild inertia group is the unique Sylow -subgroup of .
It remains to find the wild break. Since
and is a unit, the different ideal of has exponent . The extension is a tamely ramified quadratic extension and has different exponent one. The different in a tower therefore gives different exponent
On the other hand, the different exponent from ramification groups is
where is the last index for which . Thus , and