Past exam of the mathematics course of the University of Cambridge / 2023 / ii / Paper 2 / 20H / a

The trace form of a number field isIt is bilinear because the field trace is linear. If $x\ne 0$, choose $y=x^{-1}$. ThenThus no nonzero $x$ lies in the radical, and $B$ is a nondegenerate bilinear form. This is the nondegeneracy of the trace form of a number field.

Let ${\omega }_1,\dots ,{\omega }_n$ be an integral basis of ${\mathcal{O}}_K$. Since each ${\alpha }_j$ is an algebraic integer, there is an integer matrix $A=(a_{ij})$ such thatThe ${\alpha }_j$ form a $\mathbb{Q}$-basis, so $\det A\ne 0$.

Products of algebraic integers are algebraic integers, and their traces are rational algebraic integers, hence ordinary integers. Therefore every entryis integral. Part (i) makes the trace Gram matrix nonsingular, so $\Delta ({\alpha }_1,\dots ,{\alpha }_n)$ is a nonzero integer.

Let $G_{\omega }$ and $G_{\alpha }$ be the two trace Gram matrices. A change of basis givesTaking determinants yields the discriminant-index formula for an integral latticewhere $d_K=\det G_{\omega }$ is the field discriminant. Since $\det A$ is a nonzero integer,Equality holds exactly when $|\det A|=1$, which is equivalent to $A$ being unimodular and to ${\alpha }_1,\dots ,{\alpha }_n$ being a $\mathbb{Z}$-basis of ${\mathcal{O}}_K$. Thus the minimum is the positive integer