Past exam of the mathematics course of the University of Cambridge 2008 iii Paper 29 3 Solution Created 2026-10-03 Updated 2026-10-14
For an odd integer , . The same conclusion holds for every 2-adic unit by reduction modulo eight. Thus an odd square must be congruent to one modulo eight.
Conversely let with . For digit lifting for square roots of 2-adic units, start with . If is odd and , considerFor ,since the remaining term is divisible by and . The odd multiplier lets the choice of correct exactly the next binary digit. Thus . The corrections have valuations tending to infinity, so completeness gives with .
The unit is congruent to one modulo two but is not a square, and is congruent to one modulo four but is not a square, by the necessary modulo-eight condition. Therefore
Every nonzero P-adic number in is uniquely with and a 2-adic unit. A square has even valuation, and the unit square criterion shows that the unit class is determined by its odd residue modulo eight. The four residues form , generated by and ; the valuation parity supplies the third factor, generated by . Hence the square-class group of the 2-adic numbers isIts eight classes are represented by . They are distinct: the first four have even valuation and distinct unit residues modulo eight, while multiplication by gives odd valuation and the same four distinct unit residues.
In characteristic different from two, completing the square in a quadratic minimal polynomial makes every quadratic extension for a nonsquare . If , write and square. The coefficient must vanish. Since is nonsquare, , so and . Conversely a square ratio plainly gives the same field. Thus the seven quadratic extensions of the 2-adic numbers are exactly
The unique unramified extension in this list is . To verify this, is integral and satisfies . Its reduction is irreducible over , so its residue field contains . The standard degree formula for finite extensions of complete discretely valued fields with perfect residue field is . Here the field degree is two, so the residue degree is two and the ramification index is one.
Conversely an unramified quadratic extension has residue field . A root there of lifts by Hensel lemma to a root of , whose derivative is a unit. For this lift , , so the extension contains and must equal it. Every other field in the list is therefore ramified.
For the requested ramification groups, choose and . We use uniqueness of the extension of the valuation to a finite extension, together with the degree formula just stated. Since , the extension has ramification index two and residue degree one. Normalize , giving . Every element is with , and the two summands have valuations of opposite parity:Thus is integral exactly when , proving directly.
The nonidentity automorphism negates . For any integral ,of valuation at least three, with equality when is a unit. By the definition , the ramification in the quadratic extension generated by the square root of two is thereforeThe lower ramification break is two; the valuation used here is the integral normalization on .