Past exam of the mathematics course of the University of Cambridge 2019 ii Paper 4 18F ii Solution Created 2026-09-24 Updated 2026-10-03
If , thenLetThis is the nonidentity automorphism of . By extending an embedding that sends to , and composing with if necessary, chooseThenThe eight elementsare distinct, and exhaust the Galois group. Thus the dihedral Galois action on four radical roots gives
Now suppose is a square in . Then , so every automorphism fixes . We are in case (i) with , and therefore
Conversely, suppose the group is the Klein four-group. Label the rootsThe three nonidentity elements in its transitive action are the three double transpositions. Each fixes : they send the ordered pair respectively towhose products all equal . Hence every element of the Galois group fixes . By the Artin fixed-field theorem,Therefore is a square in . This proves the Klein-four criterion for an irreducible even quartic: