Work in , since . First must be odd: if it were even, coprimality would make odd, so , which cannot be an odd power for . Thus is odd too. Also no odd prime can divide both and . Such a prime does not divide , and square-freeness of gives , whereas is divisible by . Hence .
Put . Suppose a prime ideal divides both and , and let be the rational prime below it. It then contains and . The case is impossible because is odd. If is odd, the first inclusion gives , and makes nonzero in the residue field. The second inclusion therefore gives , so , contradicting the previous paragraph. Thus and are coprime ideals. In particular they generate the unit ideal, the precise meaning of coprimality here; no unique factorization of elements is assumed.
Their product is . Unique prime ideal factorization and disjoint prime support imply for an integral ideal . In the ideal class group, . Since does not divide the class number, Lagrange's theorem forces . Write . Equality of the principal ideals gives . The only units are , since a unit satisfies and . Both signs are th powers for odd , so they can be absorbed into the generator:Apply the class-number obstruction from a ramified odd exponent. For the equation with and , compare the coefficients of in this identity. The coefficient on the right isIts term is divisible by , and every term contains a factor , so the whole coefficient is divisible by . The coefficient on the left is one, a contradiction. Thus there are no positive integer solutions under the stated class-number and divisibility assumptions.
Ring of integers Created 2026-10-14 Updated 2026-10-25
The ring of integers of a number field isIt is the integral closure of in . Its additive group is a free abelian group of rank , so an integral basis writes every element uniquely as with . Its field of fractions is .[ref]
https://www.jmilne.org/math/CourseNotes/ANT.pdf. Milne, Algebraic Number Theory, Chapter 2, rings of integers and integral bases
For , this gives ; for , it gives . The Gaussian integers give the corresponding example inside . The ring of integers is determined by the field, and need not equal for a chosen algebraic integer generator: in , the larger ring contains with index two.
This is the setting for divisibility, global units, and prime ideal factorization. A ring of integers is a Dedekind domain, so every nonzero proper ideal factors uniquely into nonzero prime ideals, even when unique factorization of elements fails.[ref]
https://www.numdam.org/item/BSMA_1877_2_1_1_207_1.pdf. Dedekind, Sur la théorie des nombres entiers algébriques, 1877, §25