Past exam of the mathematics course of the University of Cambridge / 2003 / iii / Paper 23 / 1 / ii / Solution

The Kronecker–Weber theorem says that every finite abelian extension of $\mathbb{Q}$ is contained in a cyclotomic field. We prove its quadratic case by identifying the ramification that a quadratic number field must have.

For an odd prime $\ell$, the cyclic Galois group of $\mathbb{Q}({\zeta }_{\ell })/\mathbb{Q}$ has exactly one subgroup of index two. Its fixed field $F_{\ell }$ is quadratic and is unramified at every finite prime other than $\ell$. For a squarefree integer $d$, the discriminant of $\mathbb{Q}(\sqrt{d})$ is $d$ if $d\equiv 1(\mathrm{mod}4)$, and $4d$ otherwise. A nontrivial quadratic discriminant supported on the odd prime $\ell$ must therefore beIndeed $d=\pm 1$ cannot give a nontrivial extension unramified at two, whereas exactly one of $\ell ,-\ell$ is congruent to one modulo four. ThusThis identifies the quadratic subfield of a prime cyclotomic field using ramification, without a Gaussian-sum computation.

Now let $F=\mathbb{Q}(\sqrt{d})$ with $d$ squarefree. Multiply $d$ by ${\prod }_{\ell \mid d,\ell \text{ odd}}{\ell }^{\ast }$. Every odd prime then occurs with even exponent, so its square class is represented by one of $1,-1,2,-2$. Thus adjoining the square roots of the ${\ell }^{\ast }$ removes all possible odd-prime ramification; the remaining quadratic factor is contained inThe original $\sqrt{d}$ is a rational multiple of a product of these square roots. It belongs to the compositum of $\mathbb{Q}({\zeta }_8)$ and the prime cyclotomic fields just used. This compositum is itself contained in a cyclotomic field, proving the theorem for $F$.

The sharper conductor statement follows from the same ramification calculation. For the fundamental discriminant $D$ of $F$, putThe possibilities for $D_2$ follow immediately from the quadratic discriminant formula. The corresponding fields are trivial, $\mathbb{Q}(i)$, $\mathbb{Q}(\sqrt{2})$ and $\mathbb{Q}(\sqrt{-2})$, lying in the cyclotomic fields of conductors $1,4,8,8$. Their conductors are coprime to the odd primes in the product. Hence quadratic Kronecker–Weber theorem by ramification gives the explicit conclusion