Imaginary quadratic Minkowski disk bound 2026-09-29
Let for square-free with , so . An integral ideal is a lattice in of covolume . Applying the Minkowski convex body theorem to a disk gives a nonzero satisfying
Past exam of the mathematics course of the University of Cambridge 2011 ii Paper 4 20F i Solution Created 2026-09-24 Updated 2026-09-24
Past exam of the mathematics course of the University of Cambridge 2020 ii Paper 1 20G Solution Created 2026-09-24 Updated 2026-09-29
The Minkowski convex body theorem states that if is a full lattice and is a measurable, convex, centrally symmetric set withthen contains a nonzero point of .
Here , so the ring of integers of a quadratic field isUnder its complex embedding it has real-lattice covolume . An integral ideal has index in , so its covolume is . Apply Minkowski's theorem to the disk , whose area is . Taking down to gives a nonzero withSince the field norm is in this imaginary quadratic field, this proves the imaginary quadratic Minkowski disk bound
Because , the idealis integral, represents the inverse class of , and hasThus every ideal class has a bounded-norm representative. Only finitely many integral ideals have bounded norm, proving the finiteness of the ideal class group.
Now take . Its ring of integers is , its discriminant is , andEvery class therefore has an integral representative of norm at most five. The polynomial is irreducible modulo three and modulo five, so both primes are inert and there are no ideals of norm three or five. At two it reduces to , and the splitting of rational primes in a quadratic field givesAn ideal of norm four is and is principal. The ideal is not principal, since a generator would have norm two, whereashas no integer solution. Consequently the Ideal class group of Q of square root of minus twenty-two is
Suppose finally that . If were even, the right-hand side would be modulo four, which is not a cube modulo four. Hence and are odd. In ,The two ideals on the left are coprime. Indeed, a common prime ideal would divide both and . It cannot lie above two because their norms are odd. It would therefore lie above eleven and force ; but then has -adic valuation exactly one, impossible for the cube .
By unique factorization of ideals in a number field, coprimality impliesfor some ideal . The class group has order two, so it has no element of order three; therefore forces to be principal. The only units are , both of which can be absorbed into a cube, and hencefor integers . Comparing the coefficient of givesThus . For this requires , and for it requires ; neither is possible. Therefore the result on no integral solutions to y cubed equals x squared plus twenty-two is
Past exam of the mathematics course of the University of Cambridge 2023 ii Paper 4 20H a Solution Created 2026-09-24 Updated 2026-09-25
Minkowski's lemma states that if is a full lattice in and is measurable, convex, and centrally symmetric, thenimplies that contains a nonzero point of .
Let be the two real embeddings. The Minkowski embedding of a real quadratic field identifies with a latticeof covolume . Choose a constant satisfyingFor , consider the closed diamondIt is convex and centrally symmetric, and its area isMinkowski's lemma supplies a nonzero whose two embeddings lie in .
For , the arithmetic-geometric mean inequality givesSince the coordinate product is the field norm,Finally, as . No fixed nonzero algebraic integer can occur for arbitrarily large , because its second embedding is nonzero. Consequently the elements obtained along an unbounded sequence of contain infinitely many distinct values. Here denotes the absolute norm, as usual in this inequality.