Past exam of the mathematics course of the University of Cambridge 2002 iii Paper 3 5 c Solution Created 2026-10-03 Updated 2026-10-14
Write with , and let be the splitting field. The root set of is an -dimensional vector space over , by the argument of part (a) with replaced by .
The constants really occur inside , rather than only in the ambient algebraic closure. Choose a nonzero root . For every , is also a root, so both elements lie in andLet . Since is Galois of degree two,This index statement does not require proving that has no still larger constant field.
As an extension of , is the splitting field of the same polynomial. Applying part (b) with base constant size and dimension givesThe special linear group is the kernel of determinant in the general linear group, so every element of normalizes it. Therefore is the required normal index-two subgroup normalizing .
In fact the full group is semilinear over : an element outside acts on constants as and satisfies . Field automorphisms preserve determinant one, so this also explains the normalizer behavior geometrically. This is the quadratic constant extension of a q-squared linearized splitting field, not the polynomial of part (b) with its term unchanged.