Main conjecture of Iwasawa theory

The classical Iwasawa main conjecture, now a theorem over $\mathbb{Q}$, identifies characteristic ideals of appropriate cyclotomic Iwasawa modules with ideals generated by p-adic L-function power series. For a nontrivial even character in the p-ramified convention, ${\mathrm{char}}_{\Lambda }{X}_{\chi }=(g_{\chi })$ with $g_{\chi }((1+p{)}^{1-s}-1)=L_p(\chi ,s)$. The Kummer reflection in Iwasawa theory accounts for the reflected odd class-group convention.

In the real cyclotomic tower, the class-field unit sequence gives $0\to E/C\to U/C\to X\to Y\to 0$, where $X$ is the p-ramified Iwasawa module and $Y$ the unramified one. The modules are torsion over each one-variable character component. Splitting the four-term sequence into two short exact sequences proves the displayed identity by multiplicativity of characteristic ideals. The Iwasawa theorem on local cyclotomic units computes $\mathrm{char}(U/C)$ analytically. Thus the main conjecture for $X$ is equivalent to $\mathrm{char}(E/C)=\mathrm{char}(Y)$; local interpolation alone does not prove this remaining global equality.

For the real p-power cyclotomic tower, take norm limits of local principal units and closed cyclotomic-unit subgroups. The corrected Coleman logarithm identifies $U_{\infty }^1$ with the Iwasawa algebra of $G={\mathbb{Z}}_p^{\times }/\{\pm 1\}$. On a symmetric cyclotomic unit it gives $([b]-[a]){\zeta }_p$. A topological generator generates the cyclotomic-unit limit and the augmentation ideal, yielding the quotient description. This local calculation does not alone identify the characteristic ideal of the global Galois module.

At a good split prime, the one-prime CM division tower has a pro-$p$ Galois group isomorphic to ${\mathbb{Z}}_p$. Its prime-ramified Iwasawa module is torsion on each finite-character component. The main conjecture identifies its characteristic ideal with the corresponding elliptic-unit p-adic L-function. The class-field unit sequence and equality of characteristic ideals of global-units modulo elliptic-units and of class groups prove the identification. The cyclotomic Selmer formulation requires the appropriate CM twist and two-variable specialization; the one-prime tower is not the cyclotomic tower.

The Mazur-Wiles theorem proves the classical Iwasawa main conjecture for abelian extensions of $\mathbb{Q}$. Its construction of class fields uses Galois representations associated with modular forms, congruences with Eisenstein series and the Eisenstein ideal.