A number-field completion is finite. Let be the given number field and its completion. Normalize its absolute value on a field so that the restriction to is : if , use . Changing the original absolute value by this positive power does not change its completion. The closure of in is an isometric copy of .
Take a -basis of and let be its -span in . Choose a maximal linearly independent subset of that finite spanning set. The compact-sphere proof of finite-dimensional non-Archimedean norm equivalence applies to this basis too, so is complete and therefore closed in . Since is dense in , it follows that . Hence
Every finite extension is obtained this way. Let be finite. Use its extending Non-Archimedean absolute value, whose completeness and uniqueness were proved above. In characteristic zero the primitive element theorem gives ; scaling by a power of , we may arrange that it is integral. Its monic minimal polynomial belongs to . If the degree is one, is already the completion of .
Otherwise choose
where runs over the conjugates in an algebraic closure. Approximate the coefficients of by integers, obtaining a monic of the same degree. Since , sufficiently accurate approximation gives and makes . The strong form of Hensel lemma in produces a root of with .
For completeness, the required Krasner's lemma follows from the unique extension of an absolute value to a finite extension. In a finite Galois extension containing , every automorphism fixing is an isometry, and
If , this contradicts the choice of . Thus every automorphism fixing fixes , and Galois correspondence gives . Since , equality follows. In particular is irreducible over , and therefore over .
Put . It is a number field, and the closure of in contains , so is dense. Let
Every element of the ring of integers of a number field has absolute value at most one: otherwise its highest-degree term would strictly dominate all other terms of a monic integer equation. Thus reduction into the residue field of makes a prime ideal, and . The restriction of the valuation to is the valuation of this prime, up to normalization. Indeed, the localized discrete valuation ring maps into , its units have absolute value one, and its uniformizer has absolute value less than one. Density and completeness give
This proves the local realization as a completion of a number field.
A finite separable field extension of degree has exactly embeddings into an algebraic closure: adjoin finitely many generators successively, and use part (i) to count extensions of each embedding by the distinct roots of the relevant separable minimal polynomial.
For , label these embeddings . For each pair , the equality
excludes at most one . If the images of agree, the images of cannot agree too, so it excludes none. Since is infinite, choose avoiding the finitely many bad values and put . The images of are distinct, hence its minimal polynomial has degree at least . But gives degree at most . Therefore . Combining generators two at a time proves the primitive element theorem for every finite separable extension over an infinite base field.
A finite field extension is a separable field extension if every element of has a minimal polynomial over with distinct roots in an algebraic closure. The primitive element theorem says that a finite separable field extension is for some .
If is finite, then so is . The multiplicative group of a finite field is cyclic, so a generator of generates as a field. To justify the group fact, a finite subgroup of a field's multiplicative group is cyclic: in a finite abelian group its exponent is attained as an element order, while the polynomial root bound forces its size to be at most that exponent.
If is infinite, first consider . The minimal polynomials of and have distinct roots in an algebraic closure. Choose , , avoiding the finitely many values for which for a pair other than . Set . Over , the polynomials and have precisely one common root, . Their monic greatest common divisor is therefore , so and . Thus . Induct over finitely many generators of the finite separable field extension. This proves every finite separable extension is simple.
Use the simple-root form of the Hensel lemma: for and satisfying and , there is a unique with as its reduction and .
Let . The residue field is finite, so is separable, and the primitive element theorem gives . Let be the monic irreducible polynomial of , of degree , and choose a monic coefficient lift . Irreducible reduction implies that is irreducible over : any monic factorization over has integral coefficients, since all its roots are integral over the valuation ring, and would reduce to a factorization of .
Adjoin a root and put . Then and . Its reduction satisfies , so contains a copy of over . For finite extensions of non-Archimedean local fields, the fundamental degree relation is
The residue degree is at least , while the left side equals , hence
This constructs the required unramified extension.
For uniqueness, let be another unramified extension with a chosen identification . The element corresponding to is a simple residue root of , because finite fields are perfect. The Hensel lemma in gives a root with this reduction. Since is irreducible of degree , , so . Sending to yields a -isomorphism , compatible with the prescribed residue identification. Thus
This proves the existence and uniqueness of unramified local extensions using the stated version of Hensel's lemma, without assuming the classification in advance.
Because , the finite extension is separable. By the primitive element theorem, write . The minimal polynomial of over has a root in the algebraically closed field , so sending to that root defines a -field embedding .
The cyclic group acts faithfully on after replacing by the order of . The Artin fixed-field theorem gives
and says that is a finite Galois extension with cyclic Galois group . The image is an intermediate field. Every subgroup of a cyclic group is normal, so the normal subextension criterion shows that is Galois, and its Galois group is a quotient of , hence cyclic. Transporting this structure through proves that is Galois with cyclic Galois group. This is the finite extensions of the fixed field of a finite-order automorphism of an algebraically closed field theorem.
Algebraic closedness is necessary. Take and , so , and let . The extension has degree three but is not normal, since the two nonreal roots of do not belong to . It is therefore not Galois.
Krasner's lemma says that if is complete, is separable over , and
then .
To prove it, let be an automorphism of fixing . The absolute value has a unique extension to every finite extension of the complete field , so it is invariant under . If , the ultrametric inequality and the displayed strict inequality give
But and invariance gives , a contradiction. Every automorphism fixing therefore fixes , which proves the field inclusion by Galois correspondence.
Now let be finite. By the primitive element theorem, write with separable minimal polynomial . Approximate the coefficients of closely by those of a polynomial of the same degree. Continuity of roots over a non-Archimedean field gives a root of arbitrarily close to . Choose it close enough for Krasner's lemma; then
The degree bound from forces equality. If and is the prime selected by the embedding , its completion is
Thus every finite extension of is the completion of a number field at a prime ideal.
Put . The roots of are , so its splitting field is
The polynomial is irreducible over by the Eisenstein criterion at , and does not contain . The tower law for field extensions therefore gives .
Define automorphisms
They satisfy and . The eight maps and are distinct, so they exhaust the Galois group. Hence
the dihedral group of order eight.
The Galois correspondence gives all intermediate fields. The full list, with a single generator for each field, is
For example, has stabilizer , and has stabilizer ; the other entries follow similarly. Also has trivial stabilizer, so its orbit has eight elements and the primitive element theorem conclusion holds explicitly.
Finally, the normal subextension criterion says that normal intermediate fields correspond exactly to normal subgroups. In these are , , the two index-two Klein four-groups, , and , which gives exactly the “yes” rows above. This is the subfields of the splitting field of x to the fourth minus seven lattice.
For a ring homomorphism , the Module of Kähler differentials is the -module generated by symbols , subject to
Equivalently, it represents -linear derivations:
For , the Transitivity exact sequence for Kähler differentials is
If is surjective, the Conormal exact sequence for Kähler differentials is
Let be a finite field extension. By the primitive element theorem, its maximal separable field extension is simple, and transitivity reduces the calculation to a simple algebraic extension. If with minimal polynomial , then
Thus a separable simple extension has zero differentials. Conversely, if is not separable, the purely inseparable part has a generator whose minimal polynomial has zero formal derivative in positive characteristic, producing a nonzero differential. Hence
Now let . If , , and , then the minimal polynomial is and has zero derivative, so
If , where , , and , then . Both defining equations have zero derivative, and
  • In (i), and relative to , so
If , this is and its support is the origin . If , it is free of rank one and its support is all of .
  • In (ii), and vanish relatively, whence
Its support is the origin in every characteristic; the module is unless , when it is .
  • In (iii), and give
Its support is the entire component .
If is finite separable, the primitive element theorem writes it as with . The relation in part a has a nonzero component, so projection along that relation gives an isomorphism
For an arbitrary simple finite extension, part a presents as a quotient of a vector space of dimension by the image of a space of dimension at most one. Its dimension is therefore at least . Applying this one generator at a time through a finite tower proves the same inequality for every finite extension.
Strict inequality occurs in characteristic . Take and . Then , while the relation has zero differential relative to , so
has dimension one.
Primitive element of a field extension Created 2026-09-24 Updated 2026-09-24
A primitive element of a finite extension is an element such that .