Because , we have and
For , the minimal polynomial is
Since , reduction modulo gives . Its two roots are distinct, so
with distinct prime ideals of norm . Thus splits completely, as recorded in splitting of three in Q of square root minus p.
The ideal class group is the group of nonzero fractional ideals of modulo the subgroup of principal fractional ideals. Saying that has order means that is the least positive integer for which is principal.
Suppose for contradiction that is odd and has order . Then for some , and taking norms gives
Write , where have the same parity. Then
If , the right-hand side is at least , contradicting . Hence , so is a rational algebraic integer and therefore an integer. But then , impossible when is odd. This proves the odd-order obstruction for a split prime in an imaginary quadratic field and shows that the order cannot equal .
The Liouville approximation theorem states that if is an irrational algebraic number of degree , then there is a constant such that every reduced rational satisfies
Let be the minimal polynomial of , of degree . Since is irreducible of degree greater than one, . Moreover,
and hence
On the compact interval , put
If , the mean value theorem gives a point between and such that
Thus . If , then . Taking any
proves the stated strict inequality.
Since generates , it cannot lie in a proper subfield, so its minimal polynomial over has degree . Write it as
The identity and characteristic two give
Multiplying by and applying the linear map yields
This is a binary linear recurrence of order at most , so is the output of a linear-feedback shift register of length at most .
An element is separable over when its minimal polynomial has distinct roots in a splitting field.
Because is irreducible, it is separable exactly when
If , then , so irreducibility makes this greatest common divisor equal to one. If , the zero-derivative criterion gives
for some , and is inseparable. Therefore
The Jordan normal form theorem says that every complex square matrix is similar to a direct sum of Jordan blocks, uniquely up to their order. For an eigenvalue , if its blocks have sizes , then its algebraic multiplicity and geometric multiplicity are
and its contribution to the minimal polynomial is . Thus
where is the largest -block size.
For the given matrix,
Moreover,
Hence
The eigenvalue therefore has one Jordan block of size two, so
For a ring homomorphism , the Module of Kähler differentials is the -module generated by symbols , subject to
Equivalently, it represents -linear derivations:
For , the Transitivity exact sequence for Kähler differentials is
If is surjective, the Conormal exact sequence for Kähler differentials is
Let be a finite field extension. By the primitive element theorem, its maximal separable field extension is simple, and transitivity reduces the calculation to a simple algebraic extension. If with minimal polynomial , then
Thus a separable simple extension has zero differentials. Conversely, if is not separable, the purely inseparable part has a generator whose minimal polynomial has zero formal derivative in positive characteristic, producing a nonzero differential. Hence
Now let . If , , and , then the minimal polynomial is and has zero derivative, so
If , where , , and , then . Both defining equations have zero derivative, and
  • In (i), and relative to , so
If , this is and its support is the origin . If , it is free of rank one and its support is all of .
  • In (ii), and vanish relatively, whence
Its support is the origin in every characteristic; the module is unless , when it is .
  • In (iii), and give
Its support is the entire component .
For a finite extension of local fields, let be its ramification index and its residue-field degree. An unramified extension has . A totally ramified extension has , equivalently . A tamely ramified extension has separable residue extension and ramification index coprime to the residue characteristic.
Let generate the finite extension , and let be its minimal polynomial. Lift to a monic and choose any lift of . Since finite fields are perfect fields, . The simple-root form of Hensel lemma, applied inside , gives with
Set . Its residue field contains , so
The equation gives the reverse inequality. Thus , its residue-field degree is , and ; hence is unramified. Since , the extension has residue-field degree one and is totally ramified. This constructs the maximal unramified subextension of a local field extension.
The minimal polynomial is the unique monic polynomial of least positive degree with . Uniqueness follows because division of one monic annihilator by another would produce a lower-degree annihilator. Cayley–Hamilton says that the characteristic polynomial annihilates ; division then shows
The map , , is surjective because map to the given basis. Its kernel is generated by the minimal polynomial and the quotient has dimension , so . The relation for gives
Make a -module by . The structure theorem over the Euclidean domain decomposes its torsion module as
where the are monic irreducibles. Each summand is indecomposable: its submodules form a chain, so two nonzero submodules cannot form a direct sum. This is the desired decomposition into invariant indecomposable subspaces.
The characteristic polynomial is
whereas the minimal polynomial is the least common multiple
Suppose first that is a totally ramified extension of degree , and let be a uniformizer of . If the valuation on is normalized by , then . The value group of already contains both and , so its ramification index over is at least . Hence , and therefore .
Let
be the minimal polynomial of . Every conjugate of has positive valuation, so each lies in the maximal ideal of . Moreover
which means . Thus is an Eisenstein polynomial.
Conversely, if is a root of an Eisenstein polynomial of degree , the Eisenstein criterion makes that polynomial irreducible and its Newton polygon gives when is normalized. Consequently ; equality with the field degree forces and residue-field degree one. Thus is totally ramified.
For the general result, choose logarithms of nonzero algebraic numbers and algebraic coefficients , and put
Let
where is the minimal polynomial and its is the naive polynomial height, and let
The general lower bound for a linear form in logarithms states that, if , then
where the effective constant depends only on and the degree of the number field generated by all the data.
For the improved homogeneous result, take and
With the same , after ordering the terms set
The Baker lower bound for a homogeneous linear form in logarithms gives
Both constants are effective. The division by in is the improvement that matters when has variable height.
For coprime integers with ,
This follows either directly from the real and p-adic absolute values, or from the height-Mahler measure formula applied to the primitive minimal polynomial .
Suppose and were linearly dependent over . Then for some , with the zero-polynomial cases included. Since , , and therefore
If this has multiplicity at , then the minimal polynomial of to the power divides in . Hence .
The construction in part (b) gives
When , this exceeds for all sufficiently large depending only on and , contradicting . Thus are linearly independent.
Squaring and eliminating the inner radical gives
Thus are roots of
and are roots of
Both polynomials are irreducible by the Eisenstein criterion at , so these are the four minimal polynomials over .
Over , the relevant radicands are
The norms of and to equal , so neither can be a square in . Also with would force , followed by either or , both impossible. Thus is not a square either.
Similarly, over the radicands and have nonsquare norm , while would force either or . Hence is not a square in . Both extensions therefore satisfy all the hypotheses of part (b).
Suppose, for a contradiction, that suitable nonzero polynomials vanish at both and . If , then the primitive minimal polynomial divides . The multiplicativity of Mahler measure and the Mahler measure bounded by polynomial length give
If , then, using , this inequality contradicts . Hence is a proper intermediate field of . Its degree divides the prime by the tower law, so . Applying the same argument to is even stronger and gives . Since ,
contrary to . At least one of the two proposed values of therefore has no such polynomial relation.
For a finite extension of number fields and a nonzero prime ideal of , the primes of above correspond to the orbits of
An embedding determines a prime by pulling back the local absolute value on a field. Embeddings with the same prime extend to embeddings of the same completion and are conjugate. If , these orbits are the irreducible factors of its minimal polynomial over .
If is a finite Galois extension of local fields, , and is the minimal polynomial of , then
For a degree- totally ramified Galois extension and a uniformizer , let be its minimal polynomial. Dividing the ramification polynomial by its known factor gives the reduced ramification polynomial. It is monic of degree , integral over the extension's valuation ring, and has roots for nonidentity automorphisms. Its constant coefficient is nonzero in a separable extension. Removing the zero root allows the usual Newton polygon root valuation theorem to apply directly.
Separable algebraic element Created 2026-09-24 Updated 2026-09-24
An algebraic element over is separable when its minimal polynomial over has no repeated root in a splitting field. For an irreducible polynomial , this is equivalent to , because then .