For a CM-field over its maximal real subfield , the ordinary Hilbert class field is totally real because its real places split. Thus . Its compositum with is an abelian extension of of degree , and is everywhere unramified by unramified extensions remain unramified under base change. It lies in , giving the divisibility. The argument does not require injectivity of extension of ideal classes.
Class number divisibility under total ramification Created 2026-10-05 Updated 2026-10-06
If is an extension of number fields, has no real places, and one finite prime of is totally ramified in , then . The Hilbert class field has trivial intersection with : any common intermediate extension would be both unramified and totally ramified at that prime. Thus is an unramified abelian extension of degree , and is contained in .
Class number divisibility with split real places Created 2026-10-07 Updated 2026-10-14
If a finite extension of number fields has a totally ramified finite prime, the ordinary Hilbert class field is disjoint from . Its base change is abelian and unramified at finite primes. Its real places also split, since a split-real unramified extension retains this property under base change. It therefore lies in the ordinary Hilbert class field of , proving even when has real places.
The polynomial is irreducible with discriminant , so its splitting field has Galois group and quadratic subfield . The splitting field is cyclic cubic over that subfield. It is unramified outside 229, and at 229 its inertia is a transposition, meeting the alternating cubic subgroup trivially. All roots are real. It is therefore everywhere unramified over the quadratic field. The ideal class group of Q of square root 229 has order three, so this extension is exactly the Hilbert class field.
Hilbert class field of Q of square root minus six Created 2026-10-03 Updated 2026-10-05
The ideal class group of has order two, and
This quadratic extension of is unramified at every finite prime and therefore has the degree required of the Hilbert class field.
The ideal class group of is . Its four reduced binary quadratic forms have coefficients , , and . The displayed multiquadratic field has degree four over the base. The seven quadratic-subfield discriminants are , whose product in absolute value is . The conductor-discriminant formula and discriminant tower formula imply that the relative discriminant over is the unit ideal. This unramified abelian degree-four extension is therefore its Hilbert class field.
Hilbert class field of Q of square root minus thirty-one Created 2026-10-06 Updated 2026-10-07
The splitting field of has discriminant square class and Galois group . It is the Hilbert class field of : the relative extension is unramified cyclic cubic, and the ideal class group of Q of square root minus thirty-one has order three. Locally at , the simple residue root lifts and the remaining quadratic splits over , so the prime of above splits completely in its Hilbert class field. The inverse generator satisfies .
The three reduced primitive binary quadratic forms of discriminant are and , so the class number is three. The displayed cubic has discriminant and is irreducible. Its splitting field has Galois group and is cyclic cubic over . Modulo it factors as . Lift the simple factor; the remaining quadratic has discriminant valuation one, so its local inertia group has order two. Its intersection with is trivial. Thus the relative cyclic cubic extension is everywhere unramified and equals the Hilbert class field.
For a number field , its ordinary Hilbert class field is the maximal finite abelian extension unramified at every finite prime and with every real place splitting completely. The Artin reciprocity map induces
The image of an unramified prime ideal is its Frobenius automorphism. Thus a prime splits completely in precisely when its ideal class is trivial. This field packages ideal-class obstructions into splitting behavior. Ideals become principal in by the principal ideal theorem. Specifying the real-place convention matters for real fields: omitting it leads instead to the narrow class-field problem. Both illustrative fields below are imaginary quadratic, so there are no real places to discuss.
First consider , whose quadratic discriminant is . The correspondence between ideal classes and reduced primitive positive definite binary quadratic forms lets us compute its class number without guessing a class field. A reduced form obeys , , and ; a boundary case uses . For the only class is ; for the two possibilities are and . Hence and its ideal class group is cyclic of order three.
Take . Its only possible rational roots are , neither a root, so it is irreducible. Its polynomial discriminant is , which is nonsquare. Thus its splitting field has Galois group and the quadratic fixed field of is , generated by the square root of its discriminant. Therefore is cyclic of degree three and for a root of .
At a prime other than , the separable residue polynomial splits over a finite residue-field extension; Hensel's lemma puts all its roots in an unramified local extension. At there is the exact factorization
The simple factor lifts by Hensel's lemma. The remaining quadratic factor has discriminant valuation one, because the cubic discriminant is and the resultant with the simple factor is a unit. Its local splitting field is ramified quadratic, with inertia group of order two. Its intersection with is trivial, so the relative extension is unramified at as well. There are no real places. An unramified abelian extension of degree must be all of , giving
This is the Hilbert class field of Q of square root minus twenty-three.
The other alternative, , has quadratic discriminant . Reduced forms have and even . Testing , , and gives exactly
Thus . Each class is its own inverse, because replacing by leaves these representatives unchanged; consequently the ideal class group is .
Set . The square classes are independent, so . Their product gives , and is abelian of degree four. Its seven quadratic subfields have discriminants
For a multiquadratic abelian extension, the conductor-discriminant formula takes the product of these quadratic character conductors, namely the absolute quadratic discriminants. Hence . The relative discriminant tower formula gives
The integral relative discriminant ideal therefore has norm one and is the unit ideal. Thus is everywhere unramified, and its degree equals the class number. This proves the other explicit answer:
It agrees with the Hilbert class field of Q of square root minus thirty. Both alternatives have been computed independently from their class numbers and ramification.
Let be the ordinary Hilbert class field of . Its real places split completely, so is totally real. Since is quadratic and is totally imaginary, cannot equal ; hence it equals . Therefore the compositum has
and is an abelian extension of , by restriction of the Galois group to . At finite primes it is unramified because unramified extensions remain unramified under base change. The field has no real places, so there is no infinite-place ramification condition left. Thus , where is the Hilbert class field of . Since , the tower degree formula proves class number divisibility for a CM extension:
This argument uses the ordinary class field with split real places; replacing it silently by the narrow class field would invalidate the claim that is totally real.
A modulus of a number field is , with a nonzero integral ideal and a subset of the real places. Let be the group of fractional ideals prime to , and let consist of principal ideals with at each prime power in and at each selected real place. The ray class group is
The ray class field is the finite abelian extension for which the Artin map has kernel and induces an isomorphism . Equivalently it is the maximal abelian extension whose conductor divides .
To compute its order use the ray class exact sequence, including signatures:
The middle map lifts a residue and sign tuple to an element of by weak approximation theorem, then takes its principal ideal as a ray class. Different lifts differ by a principal ray factor. Its kernel consists exactly of tuples represented by global units. Every ordinary ideal class has a representative prime to the finite modulus, again by weak approximation theorem; this gives surjectivity of the last map. If denotes the ray units, the kernel of the unit map is . The Chinese remainder theorem and counting units in each prime-power quotient give the ray class number formula
First take . Its ring of integers is , where and . The Minkowski bound for ideal classes is , so every ideal class has a representative of norm one and . Its units are the six roots of unity. Modulo seven, the polynomial has distinct roots , and therefore
The unit group of this quotient has order . The unit maps to , which has order six; consequently unit reduction is injective and . The ray class number formula gives .
We also identify the quotient explicitly. Conjugation interchanges the two factors, so the residue norm is . Its kernel has order six and equals the image of the six units, since . Hence
The field has degree six over , since the degrees over are twelve and two. It is unramified outside seven by the cyclotomic computation and the base-change argument above. At primes over seven, has completion , and is the tame degree-six cyclotomic extension; its conductor exponent is one. Its relative arithmetic Artin symbol at an ideal prime to seven acts by
If with , then . Thus the Artin map kills the principal ray subgroup. It factors through the order-six ray class group; the residue norm quotient computed above shows that it is onto the degree-six Galois group, so the fields coincide. This proves the explicit ray class field of Q of square root minus three modulo seven:
Now take , and write . Its ring of integers is , its discriminant is , and its units are . The quotient by is
whose two units are both images of . The ray class exact sequence therefore gives .
For its class number, the Minkowski bound for ideal classes is , so each ideal class contains an integral ideal of norm at most three. The primes of norms two and three are
These are the only nontrivial possibilities within the bound, and their ideal classes coincide and have order at most two. The ideal is not principal: its being principal would give an integer solution to , which is impossible. Thus , the ideal class group is , and the ray field is the Hilbert class field.
We verify its actual identity rather than stopping at the degree. Put
The two quadratic fields and are distinct, so and . The integral elements are a rational basis. Their trace matrix is the Kronecker product of the two quadratic trace matrices, with discriminants and . Its determinant is therefore . The discriminant-index formula for an integral lattice shows that the field discriminant divides . On the other hand the relative discriminant ideal formula gives
The norm on the right is a positive integer, so equality is forced. Thus the relative discriminant ideal is the unit ideal, and is unramified at every finite prime. There are no real places of . The extension is quadratic and therefore Abelian; its degree equals , identifying it with the Hilbert class field of Q of square root minus six. Hence the ray class field of Q of square root minus six modulo square root minus six is
The existence theorem of global class field theory, together with reciprocity, gives an inclusion-reversing bijection between finite abelian extensions inside a fixed algebraic closure and open finite-index subgroups of the idèle class group . The subgroup for is , and
Equivalently, for each modulus , subgroups between the ray-principal group and the ideal group classify abelian extensions whose conductor divides . Their quotients are identified with the corresponding Galois groups by the Artin map. Changing the modulus gives the same extension when the induced congruence subgroup is the same.
The conductor criterion says that a finite place has conductor exponent zero exactly when the extension is unramified there; a real place is absent from the conductor exactly when it stays real. Thus conductor one means unramified at every finite place and no real-to-complex ramification.
Apply the existence theorem to the open subgroup of which is the image of
The idele-to-ideal map identifies the quotient by this subgroup with the ordinary ideal class group, which is finite. Therefore its class field exists and satisfies
Its conductor is one, so it is everywhere unramified. Conversely any everywhere-unramified abelian extension has conductor one; its Artin map kills , hence factors through this quotient and corresponds to an extension contained in . This proves that is exactly the Hilbert class field, the maximal abelian everywhere-unramified extension. Here the ordinary ideal class group is appropriate because the infinite factors include all , rather than only the positive real factors used in a narrow ray class group.
For a number field and a modulus of a number field , let be the group of fractional ideals prime to its finite part. Let consist of principal ideals generated by elements congruent to one modulo its finite part and positive at each real place in its infinite part. The ray class group is .
The classification theorem of class field theory asserts the existence of a ray class field and an Artin map isomorphism
Its intermediate fields correspond contravariantly to subgroups of this ray class group. Equivalently, for each congruence subgroup of fractional ideals there is a unique finite abelian extension with Artin group kernel and group . Every finite abelian extension occurs for some modulus. For a fixed modulus, these are exactly the extensions whose conductor divides that modulus; the same field may be presented using larger moduli, with the appropriate pulled-back group kernel.
We quote the conductor facts needed to specialize this classification. The finite conductor exponent is zero exactly at the unramified primes. A real place occurs in the conductor exactly when it becomes complex. Thus conductor one means unramified at every finite prime and split at every real place. With the ray class group is the ordinary ideal class group, so classification gives an extension with
It is unramified at all finite primes, and its real places split. Conversely, every finite abelian extension with those properties has conductor one and lies in . This proves the existence and maximality of the ordinary Hilbert class field. Its degree is finite by finiteness of the ideal class group. The real-place convention matters: allowing real places to become complex gives the narrow class field instead; for the imaginary quadratic field in part (ii) this distinction disappears.
Put , where is the group of th roots of unity. The compatible Galois groups of the cyclotomic fields give
For odd , the Teichmüller character gives
The p-adic logarithm identifies with , which is topologically isomorphic to . More explicitly, is an isomorphism from the additive p-adic integers onto : the logarithm of has valuation one and generates . Take the fixed field of in .
For , use instead
The p-adic logarithm identifies the second factor with , and identifies it with . The fixed field of in is the union of the maximal real subfields of the cyclotomic fields of -power conductor. Thus in both cases the cyclotomic Zp-extension exists:
where for odd and .
The closed subgroup is the unique subgroup of index , so the Galois correspondence supplies the unique degree- field . In the odd case it is the -fixed field in ; in the even case it is the real subfield of . These finite layers are all totally real number fields.
Now set , , and let be the ordinary Hilbert class field of . Thus is abelian, unramified at finite primes, and split at every real place, with degree . If there is nothing to prove. Otherwise the unique prime over is totally ramified in , by the permitted total-ramification fact and multiplicativity of the ramification index. Any nontrivial intermediate field of is ramified at that prime. Hence
It follows that the two extensions are linearly disjoint field extensions, and
Unramified extensions remain unramified after base change. The real places also remain split: and are totally real, so their compositum is totally real. Therefore lies inside the ordinary Hilbert class field . Its degree divides , proving
This is class number divisibility with split real places; using a class-field statement restricted to imaginary fields would unnecessarily omit the present real layers.
Write . Its only finite subgroup is trivial. In particular, a real place cannot acquire complex inertia in this Zp-extension: the possible nontrivial inertia at a real place has order two. Thus every infinite place splits in the tower.
Suppose that no finite prime ramified. Every finite layer would then be an abelian everywhere unramified extension of number fields, including splitting at real places. Every layer would lie in the ordinary Hilbert class field of , a finite extension. Their degrees are unbounded, a contradiction. Therefore some finite prime must ramify.
Let have residue characteristic . Apply local class field theory to the corresponding decomposition group, a closed subgroup of . The image of the unit group is the inertia group. Its first principal-unit subgroup is a pro-l group, so its continuous image in the pro-p group is trivial. The residue-unit quotient is the finite group . Its image is finite, and is therefore also trivial in the torsion-free group . The entire inertia group is trivial. Hence
Equivalently, the tame ramification relation with a Frobenius element would force a tame inertia generator to satisfy , which is impossible nontrivially in .
For the final assertion, the cyclotomic Zp-extension of is . Fix and put , a finite extension of . Let be the completion of at its unique prime over . This is a totally ramified extension of of degree . In a compatible local algebraic closure,
Here the inequality follows from the tower through . The right side is unbounded. These composita occur among the completions of the cyclotomic tower over , so has unbounded ramification index, in particular nontrivial inertia group. Thus
This argument allows an arbitrary finite intersection between and the rational cyclotomic tower; it does not assume disjointness.
Let . Its ring of integers of a quadratic field is , and its fundamental field discriminant is .
First compute the class number. The ideal-form correspondence for imaginary quadratic fields identifies the ideal classes with proper equivalence classes of primitive positive definite binary quadratic forms of discriminant . Each has a unique reduced positive definite binary quadratic form representative under the convention , with when or . From we get . Checking these three possible leading coefficients gives exactly
For , neither odd residue choice makes integral. The listed forms are primitive and satisfy the reduction convention, so
This computes the ideal class group of Q of square root minus thirty-one.
Now take a root of , and let be its splitting field over . There is no rational root: the only candidates are , and neither vanishes. Thus the cubic is irreducible. Its polynomial discriminant is
Since this is nonsquare, the Galois group of an irreducible cubic is . Its quadratic subfield is : the product of pairwise root differences squares to and changes sign under odd permutations. Thus is cyclic of degree three, and . Indeed the cubic field and have coprime degrees, so their compositum already has the full splitting-field degree six. The squarefree polynomial discriminant also shows, by the discriminant-index formula for an integral lattice, that is the full integer ring of the cubic field.
It remains to prove that is unramified everywhere. At any rational prime , the reduction of is separable. Over a finite residue extension in which it splits, all residue roots are simple and lift by Hensel lemma to the corresponding unramified extension of . Therefore the local splitting field is unramified over , and its extension over a completion of is unramified as well.
At the only possible ramified prime, direct reduction gives
The simple root lifts to . Write , with monic quadratic over . The discriminant product formula gives
Here is a unit, so the quadratic discriminant has square class . Hence the entire local splitting field is
It is quadratic over , but its extension over the completion of is trivial. Thus the prime over splits completely in ; in particular it is not ramified there. This is the local splitting-field argument behind an unramified cyclic cubic extension from a prime-discriminant cubic. There are no real places of the imaginary quadratic field , so no infinite-place ramification remains to check.
The Hilbert class field theorem identifies the maximal everywhere unramified abelian extension with an extension of degree . Our cyclic unramified extension already has that degree, so it must be the whole Hilbert class field. Therefore
Equivalently, it is the splitting field of , of degree six over and degree three over . Replacing by gives the alternative defining cubic . This is the Hilbert class field of Q of square root minus thirty-one.