Frobenius conjugate 2026-10-05
Over , the roots of the minimal polynomial of are its distinct iterates under the finite-field Frobenius automorphism.
Past exam of the introduction to schemes course of the University of Oxford 2021 1 b Solution 2026-10-25
The quotient. Evaluation , , is a surjective ring homomorphism whose kernel of a ring homomorphism is . Indeed, division by this monic polynomial leaves a remainder , and for forces . Taking the further quotient ring modulo gives the explicit isomorphism
All fibers, including the generic fiber. For a point with residue field , its scheme-theoretic fiber isAt the generic point , the residue field is , and is an irreducible polynomial over , so . For a closed point the residue field is . The permitted criterion for a square root of gives three cases. If , choose with ; the two roots are distinct, so the Chinese remainder theorem gives . If , the quadratic has no root and is an irreducible polynomial, giving the finite field . Finally, in characteristic two, ; setting gives the dual numbers. ThusThe split scheme-theoretic fiber has two closed points, represented by and . The inert scheme-theoretic fiber has one closed point, represented by . The scheme-theoretic fiber over has one closed point, represented by , but is a nonreduced scheme: its nonzero element is nilpotent. These descriptions retain the residue fields and the nilpotent structure, which a count of points alone would lose.
The topology. The printed PDF says that the nonempty proper Zariski closed subsets are finite subsets of . Its points are prime ideals, so the intended set is .
Put . Since is a principal ideal domain, every nonzero prime ideal is a maximal ideal. Each such prime ideal contains a nonzero Gaussian integer , and therefore contains the positive integer . Its contraction to is consequently a nonzero prime ideal , so the scheme-theoretic fibers just computed list all the closed points of . The sole remaining point is the generic point .
Every proper Zariski closed subset is with : if its defining ideal were zero, it would be all of . A nonzero nonunit has a finite unique factorizationHere the are pairwise nonassociate prime elements. Conversely, any finite set of nonzero prime ideals equals ; the empty set is . ThereforeIn particular, the closure of the generic point is , and every nonempty open subset contains that generic point and all but finitely many closed points.
A nonidentity automorphism. Complex conjugationis a ring automorphism fixing . It induces the automorphism over . Since , this is not the identity morphism of schemes. On the generic fiber it is the nontrivial field automorphism of . On a split scheme-theoretic fiber it swaps the two closed points, since maps to . On an inert scheme-theoretic fiber it fixes the only point but induces the nonidentity finite-field Frobenius automorphism on its residue field, because . On the scheme-theoretic fiber over it is the identity on the entire scheme: in , so is fixed. Thus
Past exam of the mathematics course of the University of Cambridge 2003 iii Paper 36 3 Solution Created 2026-10-03 Updated 2026-10-14
A root of unity over a finite field is an element satisfying , with ; the algebraic closure is essential because all roots need not lie in the base field. Write and , where . In characteristic ,The latter polynomial has distinct roots, since the derivative is nonzero at every root. Those roots are closed under multiplication and inversion and contain , so is a finite multiplicative subgroup of a field. The proof in the preceding solution makes it a cyclic group. In particularThis also explains why the coprimality qualification is needed.
The multiplicative group of a finite field is cyclic of order . It contains the entire group of th roots precisely when . For necessity, a generator of has order and Lagrange's theorem applies. For sufficiency, a cyclic group whose order is divisible by contains roots of ; since there are exactly roots in the algebraic closure, these are all of them. Hence the least positive extension degree isHere is the multiplicative order of the residue class of modulo . If is coprime to , replace by . Existence of this order follows because is a unit modulo .
A primitive th root of unity over a finite field has multiplicative order exactly . If , no such element exists, since all roots have order dividing . If , choose a generator of . The element has order , so it is primitive precisely when . Therefore there are primitive roots, with the Euler totient function.
If is primitive of order , then exactly when , equivalently . The implication from that equality to membership follows because the roots of form , as proved in the preceding solution. Consequentlyfor , and the degree is one for . This is also the length of the finite-field Frobenius automorphism orbit of .
Past exam of the mathematics course of the University of Cambridge 2005 iii Paper 87 2 Solution Created 2026-10-03 Updated 2026-10-14
Represent a word in the Hamming space by the polynomial . A cyclic code is a linear code invariant under the cyclic coordinate shift . Under this identification the shift is multiplication by modulo . A shift-invariant vector subspace is closed under multiplication by every polynomial, since such multiplication is a linear combination of shifts. It is therefore an ideal ofConversely every ideal of is a vector subspace closed under multiplication by , hence a cyclic code. Invariance means equality under the shift, since applying it times is the identity.
Let be the inverse image of the code ideal under the quotient map . It contains and is nonzero. Choose a nonzero element of of smallest degree and scale it to a monic polynomial . For any , polynomial division gives with . Since , minimality forces . Thus and in particularThis is the required generator polynomial of a cyclic code; the divisibility direction in the printed formula is reversed. The quotient-ring modulus is , with denoting the multiplicative identity of the finite field. If , every codeword has a unique representative with . Indeed reduction of modulo gives this form, and two such products cannot differ by a nonzero multiple of because their difference has degree less than . ThereforeFor the zero code the convention is and this basis is empty; for the full word space .
The zeros of a cyclic code are the polynomial roots of in a splitting field of . Suppose first that the characteristic of does not divide . The formal derivative of is , which has no common root with ; all roots of are therefore simple. If they are , then is equivalent to for all . A root-evaluation parity-check matrix of a cyclic code, written with checks as rows, is consequentlyIts entries may lie in , rather than in the original finite field. To obtain a parity-check matrix over , choose a basis of over and replace each equation by the equations for all of its field coordinates. The resulting matrix has the same kernel , hence rank ; retain any independent rows. More economically, choose one root from each Frobenius conjugate orbit. For , , so checking one representative checks its whole orbit. Expanding that representative's equation in a basis of gives precisely the number of checks equal to its orbit length.
No coprimality hypothesis is stated in the question, so the repeated-root cyclic code case must also be distinguished. Distinct roots alone cannot determine these codes: in , the generators and have the same zero, but generate codes of dimensions one and zero. In general write in . The correct checks areusing Hasse derivatives. Indeed , so vanishing of the first coefficients is equivalent to divisibility by . A repeated-root parity-check matrix over thus has rows indexed by and entriesAs before, expand to equations over and retain independent rows. The ordinary root-evaluation matrix is exactly the special case .
For the binary Hamming code, let , , and let generate the multiplicative group of a finite field . This is possible because that group is a cyclic group. Choose a basis of over . The coordinate columns of then run through every nonzero vector of exactly once. They are a parity-check matrix for a Hamming code, possibly after permuting the columns of a given Hamming matrix. Thusis equivalent to the Hamming code. Multiplication by modulo multiplies its evaluation at by , so is a cyclic code.
The parity-check matrix has rank because its columns contain a basis. It has no zero column or repeated column, so no nonzero word of weight one or two is in its kernel. Two distinct nonzero columns have a nonzero sum, which is a third distinct column; these three columns give a word of weight three. Hence has parameters .
A polynomial over vanishes at exactly when it is divisible by its minimal polynomial of an algebraic element . The finite-field Frobenius automorphism gives all conjugates of as . Their orbit length is : if with , then the order of would divide , which is a smaller positive integer. Therefore the Hamming code as a cyclic code hasThe last exponent here is . The printed exponent would give , which is not a root of the degree- irreducible minimal polynomial of an algebraic element for .
Past exam of the mathematics course of the University of Cambridge 2007 ii Paper 1 18F Solution Created 2026-09-24 Updated 2026-10-14
The degree of a field extension is the dimension of a vector space of over . If is an -basis of and a -basis of , then spans over . An -linear relation among these products, regrouped by , first vanishes coefficientwise by independence of the , and then by independence of the . This proves the tower law , including cardinal dimensions.
A finite field has prime characteristic and is a finite-dimensional vector space over its prime field . Thus its size is . A subfield of size forces by the tower law. Conversely, if , the polynomial divides ; all its distinct roots therefore lie in . They are closed under addition, multiplication and inverses by the Finite-field Frobenius automorphism, forming the required subfield.
For an irreducible polynomial of degree over , a root generates . Its conjugates are , so this field is already the splitting field. The automorphism cycles these roots and has order . Consequently
Past exam of the mathematics course of the University of Cambridge 2010 iii Paper 26 1 Solution Created 2026-10-03 Updated 2026-10-14
Let with an algebraic integer, let be its monic minimal polynomial of an algebraic element, and write . The Kummer-Dedekind theorem applies to a rational prime not dividing the finite index . Ifwith distinct monic irreducible polynomials , choose monic integer lifts . Then the distinct prime ideals above areIn particular, is unramified precisely when has no repeated irreducible factor. The exclusion of primes dividing the index is essential.
Here is the quotient-ring proof of the Kummer-Dedekind theorem. The finite group has order coprime to . Localizing at the integers coprime to therefore gives , and reduction yieldsThe second isomorphism follows from . The Chinese remainder theorem givesEach factor is a local ring with unique maximal ideal generated by and residue field . Pulling its maximal ideal back to gives exactly ; these exhaust the primes above . This proves the asserted residue degrees and their independence of the chosen lifts.
It remains to prove the exponents rather than simply identify the primes. Unique prime ideal factorization in the Dedekind domain writes . At , its discrete valuation ring has , with a unit. Thus the maximal ideal of has nilpotence index of an ideal : its th power is zero and its st is nonzero. In this index is , since but . The displayed product isomorphism identifies these local factors, hence . This completes the theorem's proof. The same local argument works over a base number field whenever equals the full relative ring of integers after localizing at the chosen base prime.
For the required cyclotomic field, the allowed ring of integers formula makes the index one. Its cyclotomic polynomial isFor , the polynomial has derivative coprime to it modulo . Its divisor is therefore squarefree, so the Kummer-Dedekind theorem gives no ramification.
The cyclotomic reduction at a conductor prime is explicit at the remaining two primes:The quartic over has no linear factor. Its only possible irreducible quadratic divisor would be , whose roots have order three, whereas its own roots have order five. Hence it is irreducible. The two quartics over are also irreducible: their roots have multiplicative order sixteen because their fourth powers are or , both of order four; the finite-field Frobenius automorphism has orbit length four on an element of order sixteen, since and neither nor is modulo sixteen.
Consequently the prime ideal factorization above has one prime with ramification index eight and residue degree four. Above it has two primes, each with ramification index four and residue degree four. In particular,
Past exam of the mathematics course of the University of Cambridge 2010 iii Paper 26 2 i Solution Created 2026-10-03 Updated 2026-10-14
Write andEvery member of this decomposition group preserves and , so reduction defines a homomorphismIts kernel is the inertia group. We prove surjectivity of decomposition group reduction without presupposing a lift of Frobenius.
If the two residue fields coincide, surjectivity is immediate. Otherwise choose a nonzero generating it over ; a generator exists by the primitive element theorem for finite fields. Use the Chinese remainder theorem in to choose whose residue is at and zero at every other prime above . ConsiderIts coefficients are integral and fixed by , hence lie in : an element of integral over belongs to this integrally closed ring of integers.
Reduce at . When , the chosen residue of at is zero, so reduces to zero at . When , its residue is , which is nonzero. ThereforeAlthough this product is written in , its coefficients belong to . Put . The finite-field Frobenius automorphism therefore permutes its nonzero roots. In particular, is for some . Since generates , that agrees with Frobenius on the whole field. The Galois group of a finite field extension is cyclic and generated by Frobenius, so its generator lies in the image. Thus
Past exam of the mathematics course of the University of Cambridge 2015 ii Paper 1 17F ii Solution Created 2026-09-24 Updated 2026-10-06
A splitting field of over is an extension generated over by all its roots in which splits into linear factors. A nonconstant irreducible polynomial is separable polynomial when its roots in a splitting field are distinct, equivalently when it is coprime to its formal derivative. For a general polynomial, the convention compatible with the printed assertion is that all its irreducible factors are separable; repeated occurrences of the same factor are allowed under this convention.
For a finite field of characteristic , the finite-field Frobenius automorphism is injective and hence surjective. If an irreducible polynomial had zero derivative, every nonzero exponent would be divisible by . Taking th roots of its coefficients would give , contradicting irreducibility. Thus , and irreducibility gives . Every irreducible factor is therefore separable: finite fields are perfect.
If instead one defines a separable polynomial to mean that the entire polynomial has no repeated roots, the printed claim for every is false: is a counterexample over any finite field. The proof above establishes the precise intended perfect-field assertion; a polynomial has entirely distinct roots if and only if it is also squarefree.
Past exam of the mathematics course of the University of Cambridge 2017 ii Paper 3 16I a Solution Created 2026-09-24 Updated 2026-10-05
Write , where since is a finite-dimensional vector space over its prime field. Every nonzero element satisfies by Lagrange theorem, so is exactly the splitting field of over . The derivative is , making it a separable polynomial. Thus the extension is a normal field extension and a separable field extension, hence a Galois extension.
The finite-field Frobenius automorphism fixes and has . If with , all elements would be roots of the degree- polynomial , impossible. It has order , equal to the degree of the Galois extension. Therefore
Past exam of the mathematics course of the University of Cambridge 2017 ii Paper 3 16I b iii Solution Created 2026-09-24 Updated 2026-10-05
Over , the polynomial factors as . Since is not a square modulo , the last factor is an irreducible polynomial. The splitting field is , so . The finite-field Frobenius automorphism fixes and swaps the other two roots.
Past exam of the mathematics course of the University of Cambridge 2017 ii Paper 3 16I b i Solution Created 2026-09-24 Updated 2026-10-05
Over ,Both quadratics have discriminant , a nonsquare in , so are irreducible polynomials. Both split in the same quadratic finite field . Consequently . Its generator is the finite-field Frobenius automorphism , acting as a product of two transpositions on the four roots.
Past exam of the mathematics course of the University of Cambridge 2018 ii Paper 2 18I Solution Created 2026-09-24 Updated 2026-10-03
The splitting field of is the smallest extension in which is a product of linear factors; equivalently, is generated over by all its roots of a polynomial. To prove existence and uniqueness of splitting fields, adjoin a root of an irreducible polynomial dividing and repeat until splits. If and are two resulting fields, an embedding between the fields generated so far extends by sending each newly adjoined root to a root of its transformed minimal polynomial. Repetition gives a -embedding , whose image contains every root of and is therefore all of . Thus the splitting field exists and is unique up to -isomorphism.
Now write , and let the distinct irreducible factors of have degrees . The irreducible factors of a finite-field Frobenius polynomial show that a root of the degree- factor lies in exactly when . Hence the splitting field over a finite field isEvery finite field is a perfect field, so is separable; it is normal because it is a splitting field. It is consequently a Galois extension. More explicitly, the Galois group of a finite field extension is the cyclic group of order generated by the finite-field Frobenius automorphism .
Finally, let denote the number of monic irreducible polynomials over a finite field of degree over . Sinceand , , , we obtain
For a finite Galois extension of number fields, choose a nonzero residue field generator at and lift it to an integral element whose residues at the other primes above are zero, using the Chinese remainder theorem. The orbit polynomial has coefficients in the base ring of integers. Modulo , its nonzero roots are precisely the orbit of under the decomposition group. Its coefficients belong to , so finite-field Frobenius automorphism permutes these roots. Consequently some decomposition-group element acts as Frobenius on the generator, and therefore on the entire residue field. Frobenius generates the finite-field Galois group, proving surjectivity.