A one-dimensional commutative formal group law over the p-adic integers is a power series with
Its linear part is , and it has a unique formal inverse satisfying . A formal-group homomorphism is a series satisfying .
Define by adding to itself times with the formal group law. Induction on the linear part gives
Associativity and commutativity make a formal-group homomorphism. Since , its linear coefficient is a unit in . We now construct its compositional inverse of a formal power series, rather than merely assert that the nonzero coefficient is sufficient.
Write and seek with . The degree-one coefficient gives . At degree , the coefficient is plus a polynomial in the already chosen and . Division by the unit uniquely chooses . This recursively constructs over the same ring. A right inverse is constructed in the same way; associativity of composition identifies it with , so .
To prove that respects the group law, apply to the two candidate series:
Cancel by composing with . The result is . Thus
This is the multiplication isomorphism of a formal group law, a special case of the invertible morphism criterion for formal group laws. If , its linear coefficient is not a unit, so the same isomorphism assertion would fail.
In the one-dimensional commutative convention, a formal group law over is a formal power series satisfying , , and . The formal inverse is a series with . For all these series converge on , which becomes a group with operation .
Repeated formal addition gives the multiplication isomorphism of a formal group law . If , the coefficient is a unit in the p-adic integers. We can construct an inverse by coefficient recursion. At degree , the equation has the form ; dividing by the unit keeps integral. The inverse is two-sided by uniqueness of formal composition inverses. Since integral coefficients multiplied by successive powers of tend to zero, both series converge on that set and their formal identities hold there. This proves prime-to-residue-characteristic multiplication on a formal group:
The argument also applies at for odd ; it does not require a logarithm or torsion-freeness.
In this setting a formal group law means a one-dimensional commutative series with
These identities force terms of total degree at least two. There is a unique formal inverse with .
A morphism to another formal group law is a series satisfying . The invertible morphism criterion for formal group laws is
Necessity follows by comparing linear coefficients in . For sufficiency, solve recursively for a compositional inverse : at every stage the new coefficient is obtained by dividing by the unit , so all coefficients stay in . Applying to the morphism identity shows that is itself a group homomorphism of formal group laws.
In particular, the multiplication series satisfies . Since , the multiplication isomorphism of a formal group law makes invertible over . Its series and inverse converge on , so multiplication by is bijective on , and on for every finite extension .
Let be the maximal unramified extension of , with residue field . First show that every geometric solution of lies in .
The multiplication-by-n morphism on the reduced elliptic curve is surjective over . Choose with , defined over some finite finite field extension . Let be the corresponding finite unramified extension. By the surjectivity of good reduction over a local field, lift to . Then . The multiplication isomorphism of a formal group law gives a unique with , so is an -division point of defined over .
Taking gives every element of over : reduction is injective on this torsion point of an elliptic curve group because is injective on the formal kernel, and each reduced -torsion point has the unique corrected lift just constructed. Every other division point differs from one lift by an element of . Hence the entire field is unramified, not merely a field containing one choice of .
To bound the composite uniformly in , put . This division field of an elliptic curve is unramified. The Galois group of is procyclic, generated topologically by its Frobenius element , and fixes every element of . If , then
Iteration gives . In particular . Thus every such , for every together, lies in the unique unramified extension of degree . If is the composite of all these fields, the uniform unramified division field over a local field gives
The prime-to- hypothesis is essential to the inverse-series argument; no assertion about arbitrary -division is being made.
Let have good reduction over a local field of residue characteristic , with . All solutions of , for all together, lie in a single finite unramified extension of degree at most , where . First lift a solution over the algebraic closure of the residue field to a finite unramified extension; the multiplication isomorphism of a formal group law uniquely corrects the error in . This also puts in the maximal unramified extension. If is its Frobenius generator, fixes . For , set . Then , uniformly in .