Past exam of the mathematics course of the University of Cambridge 2020 ii Paper 4 18G b Solution Created 2026-09-24 Updated 2026-09-29
The symmetric group acts on the three partitions of four roots into two unordered pairs. The resulting homomorphism has kernel the Klein four-group . If is a square and the characteristic is not two, the discriminant criterion for an alternating Galois group gives , and its image on the three resolvent roots lies in .
For an irreducible quartic, is transitive on four roots, and its only possibilities inside are and . The resolvent is irreducible exactly when the image acts transitively on its three roots, equivalently when that image is . ThusThe printed statement omits the needed irreducibility hypothesis on . Literally it is false: has square discriminant and Galois group , and its resolvent is irreducible. Without quartic irreducibility, a reducible resolvent only implies , allowing the trivial group, , or .
For the specified polynomial ,Its resolvent is . Modulo this is , which has no root in and is therefore an irreducible cubic. The quartic is given to be irreducible, so the preceding criterion yields
Past exam of the mathematics course of the University of Cambridge 2023 ii Paper 4 18I a Solution Created 2026-09-24 Updated 2026-09-25
If a monic polynomial has roots in a splitting field, its polynomial discriminant isIt is a symmetric polynomial in the roots, so it belongs to the base field; it is nonzero exactly when is a separable polynomial.
Putthe Vandermonde determinant. A root permutation sends to . Hence the Galois group of a polynomial is contained in the alternating group exactly when every Galois automorphism fixes , which by the fixed-field property is equivalent to . This implies that is a square in . Conversely, if for , then , so . The Galois group therefore fixes and consists of even permutations. This proves the discriminant criterion for an alternating Galois group.
Now letThe rational root theorem shows that none of is a root, so this cubic is irreducible over . The discriminant of a depressed cubic isThis is not a square in , so the Galois group of an irreducible cubic is over .
Over , the discriminant is the squareThe cubic remains irreducible: a root in the degree-two extension would generate over both a degree-three field, by irreducibility, and a subfield of a degree-two field, contradicting the tower law for field extensions. Its Galois group over is consequently .