Two finite Galois extensions of the rational number field with coprime field discriminants have trivial intersection. Any ramified prime in the intersection would ramify in both fields. The intersection is therefore everywhere unramified at finite primes and has field discriminant of absolute value one. The Minkowski lower bound for a number-field discriminant excludes this in degree greater than one. The Galois correspondence then gives the product degree for their compositum. The normality hypothesis is used in this last intersection-to-degree argument.
Past exam of the mathematics course of the University of Cambridge 2001 iii Paper 74 5 ii Solution Created 2026-10-03 Updated 2026-10-14
For number fields, a prime ideal divides the different ideal exactly when it is ramified. More precisely, the local different exponent and tame ramification relation is , with equality for tame ramification; if , the finite residue extension is separable and the exponent is zero. One can see the ramification criterion directly from the trace pairing modulo the base prime: when its quotient ring has a nonzero nilpotent ideal, whose elements pair to zero since multiplication by a nilpotent has trace zero. When the quotient is a product of finite separable fields and its trace pairing is nondegenerate. Its determinant is a unit exactly in the second case.
Let . Any rational prime ramifying in must ramify in each , because ramification indices multiply in a tower. It would then divide both field discriminants, contrary to their coprimality. Thus is unramified at every finite prime, so . The Minkowski lower bound for a number-field discriminant excludes this for a field of degree :The last inequality follows already for the weakest signature bound : the expression starts above one at and increases with . Consequently .
For completeness, normality converts this intersection statement into the desired degree statement. Put . Restriction injects into . The fixed field of its image in is exactly , because is Galois. The Galois correspondence therefore gives . This proves coprime discriminants imply linear disjointness:
Past exam of the mathematics course of the University of Cambridge 2021 iii Paper 123 4 i Solution 2026-09-28
Suppose that were a Finite Galois extension with Galois group and unramified away from . Its quadratic subfield is the fixed field of the alternating subgroup . A quadratic field ramified only at must be : the classification by fundamental discriminants shows that is the only nontrivial quadratic discriminant supported at . In particular, ramifies in this quadratic subfield.
Because does not divide , all ramification at is tame ramification. Its inertia group is therefore cyclic. Its image in is nontrivial because the quadratic subfield is ramified, so the inertia group is generated by a transposition and has order two; it cannot have order six because it is cyclic.
The discriminant exponent of a tame Galois extension is thereforeThere is no other finite ramification, so .
On the other hand, the Minkowski bound for ideal classes implies the Minkowski lower bound for a number-field discriminantSince , the right side is smallest at and is greater than . This contradicts , so no such extension exists.