Nonprincipal Dirichlet character 2026-10-05
A nonprincipal Dirichlet character differs from the principal Dirichlet character. Equivalently, it is a nontrivial character on the unit group, so its sum over one full residue period is zero by character orthogonality. Its Dirichlet L-function is entire by Mellin continuation of a nonprincipal Dirichlet L-function.
Past exam of the mathematics course of the University of Cambridge 2017 iii Paper 137 2 Solution Created 2026-10-03 Updated 2026-10-05
Extend the Dirichlet character periodically to all integers, putting when . Its Dirichlet L-function, initially on , isThe Euler product follows from unique prime factorization and absolute convergence; a Dirichlet character is completely multiplicative on this extension. Write for the principal Dirichlet character, equal to one on units and zero elsewhere.
For a nonprincipal Dirichlet character , character orthogonality gives . Explicitly, multiplication by a unit with permutes the unit residues and multiplies this sum by , forcing it to vanish. For setThe numerator is at zero and the denominator is , so is bounded, indeed analytic, near zero; it decays exponentially at infinity. Initially for , absolute convergence justifiesThis Mellin transform integral is holomorphic for , locally uniformly in , and division by the Gamma function proves the requested analytic continuation to the left of the line one.
In fact, the same argument proves Mellin continuation of a nonprincipal Dirichlet L-function to the entire plane. If at zero, subtract this Taylor polynomial on and add its explicit integrals:The last integral is holomorphic on . Its possible simple poles at nonpositive integers cancel against zeros of . Letting increase shows that is an entire function, without any primitivity assumption.
For real , use the absolutely convergent Euler product logarithmThe higher-power remainder has the uniform estimateFor a nonprincipal Dirichlet character , invoke the allowed Nonvanishing of a nonprincipal Dirichlet L-function at one. Its holomorphy and nonvanishing give a holomorphic logarithm on a small disk about one. On the connected real interval , differs from this logarithm by a fixed element of : the difference is continuous with exponential one. Thus the prime-character sum near one is bounded. This branch argument is needed for complex-valued Dirichlet characters.
For ,The finite product has a positive limit as , and the residue-one pole of the Riemann zeta function givesHere for nonprincipal Dirichlet characters means bounded complex magnitude.
Finally, for a residue class coprime to , Orthogonality of Dirichlet characters givesOnly primes not dividing occur, so the character orthogonality applies to every term. This sum diverges as . A finite collection of primes would give a bounded sum, a contradiction. Every reduced residue class contains infinitely many primes. This is the Dirichlet theorem on primes in arithmetic progressions; the coprimality hypothesis is essential.