The polynomial is an Eisenstein polynomial at , so it is irreducible and . Its polynomial discriminant is
One must remove the index at before using this as the field discriminant. Put . Direct reduction using gives
Thus is a ring finite over , so its elements are integral. Its basis has discriminant of elements of a number field . The discriminant-index formula for an integral lattice says , so only could divide the remaining index.
We use these standard different ideal facts: the norm of the different is the absolute field discriminant; its localization is the local different; an unramified prime has different exponent zero, and a tamely ramified prime of ramification index has different exponent . The Eisenstein polynomial at gives total ramification of degree three, which is tame because . Its contribution to is therefore two. This excludes a further index factor , proving and .
Since the index is prime to and , Dedekind factorization theorem applies at both primes. Modulo , , giving a single prime with residue degree one and ramification index three. Modulo ,
Thus has residue degree one and ramification index two; the other prime over is unramified. Both ramified primes are tame. No other prime ramifies because none divides . Consequently
For each finite place , choose such that is the unramified quadratic extension. Such a choice exists even at residue characteristic two. At odd residue characteristic use a unit with nonsquare residue. At residue characteristic two, choose for which is irreducible over the finite residue field, lift to , and set . The lifted polynomial has unit derivative at every residue point and gives the unramified degree-two extension; its root is .
The square classes are open in . Indeed the strong form of Hensel lemma applied to at shows that is a square whenever . Thus any sufficiently close approximation to has square. By weak approximation for number fields, choose satisfying this at every finite . Then the local extensions are all unramified of degree two. At least one such condition ensures is not a square in . If contains no finite place, impose the same condition at one auxiliary finite place.
Set . At every specified finite prime there is one prime of above it, with ramification index one and residue degree two. Hence . The dyadic case is covered by the unramified construction, rather than by a nonexistent nonsquare residue unit in characteristic two.
Herbrand quotient and local norm indices. Let have order . For an additive -module , put and . The relevant Tate cohomology of a cyclic group groups are
If both groups are finite, their size ratio is the Herbrand quotient
Multiplicative modules use products for and . A finite module has quotient one: , while , and the two cohomology orders are equal. The six-term periodic cohomology sequence shows for a short exact sequence when these groups are finite. Thus the quotient is unchanged by finite-index changes of lattices. For the trivial -module , the zeroth group is and the negative first group is zero, so .
Now let be a cyclic extension of p-adic fields of degree . For a sufficiently deep principal unit subgroup , the p-adic logarithm is a -equivariant isomorphism with the additive p-adic lattice ; it suffices to take . The normal basis theorem makes a regular -module. Consequently , as a -lattice, is commensurable with a direct sum of copies of . These regular lattices have zero Tate groups: its invariants are the multiples of the sum of the basis elements, every such element is a norm, and vectors with coefficient sum zero are images of . Commensurability and the finite-module calculation give . Since is finite, . These comparisons also establish finiteness of the Tate groups concerned.
The valuation exact sequence now gives . Hilbert theorem 90 makes trivial. One can prove the cyclic statement directly: for of norm one set , and choose for which . Such a exists by linear independence of distinct field automorphisms. Then , so is a coboundary. Therefore the local cyclic norm index is
This is the central use of the Herbrand quotient: it calculates a norm index without first constructing the local reciprocity map.
Let be the ramification index and residue degree. With normalized integer valuations, . A norm is a unit exactly when its preimage is a unit, and the norm valuations fill . Hence there is an exact sequence
The unit norm index is . In an unramified extension all units are norms and the obstruction is the valuation modulo ; in a totally ramified cyclic extension the entire index comes from units. The norm subgroup is open: on deep principal units, logarithm carries the norm to the field trace, and the trace of a full p-adic lattice contains a sufficiently deep p-adic lattice in .
Hilbert norm residue symbol and the local-to-global principle. More generally, for a local field containing , fix the local reciprocity map with uniformizers acting as arithmetic Frobenius on unramified extensions. The Hilbert norm residue symbol is
This is independent of the chosen root, is bilinear, and has value one exactly when is a norm from . These are standard consequences of Local Artin reciprocity. The case , for which the values are signs, is the one directly governing quadratic forms. The quadratic Hilbert symbol at a place is defined for by
with value one for all when is a square. Equivalently it is one precisely when has a nonzero solution over . For nonsquare , a solution has and gives ; the converse follows from the same norm identity. When is square the conic is already isotropic. Symmetry follows from this conic criterion. The local cyclic norm index gives a norm subgroup of index two; its sign character is multiplicative in , and symmetry gives multiplicativity in . Thus the symbol is a nondegenerate bilinear pairing on the square-class group of a field, since every nonsquare gives a nontrivial norm character. Also , because , and .
For an odd-residue-characteristic p-adic field with residue size , write , , and let be the quadratic character of the residue units. Then
The unramified quadratic extension has every unit as a norm and only even norm valuations; in a ramified quadratic extension the norm of a unit has square residue. The preceding unit norm index is two, so the square-residue condition in the ramified case is also sufficient. These facts, together with , determine the formula on the generators of the square-class group. At a real place the symbol is negative exactly when both arguments are negative, and at a complex place it is always one. For , with odd units, the dyadic formula is
Only residue classes modulo eight and the parities of enter; other dyadic fields retain the norm definition.
The Hilbert reciprocity law states for . Only finitely many factors can be nontrivial: outside the places above two, the Archimedean places, and the finite places where or is not a unit, the odd-residue formula gives one. For this product formula is a formulation of quadratic reciprocity, including its supplementary laws. It forces local norm obstructions to occur with compatible parity. It is a necessary compatibility law, not by itself a substitute for the following local-to-global theorem.
The Hasse-Minkowski theorem states that a nondegenerate quadratic form over a number field has a nonzero isotropic vector if and only if it does over every completion. Equivalently, two nondegenerate quadratic forms are isometric globally if and only if they are isometric at every place. The forward directions are immediate; the reverse directions are the substantive global theorem. Over non-Archimedean completions, local isometry classes are determined by dimension, determinant square class and the Hasse invariant of a quadratic form
At real places one uses signature, and at complex places dimension suffices. Reciprocity gives for a globally diagonalized form. These invariants make the theorem practically usable: local square classes and norm characters replace an unrestricted search for rational solutions. In particular every quadratic form of dimension at least five over a p-adic field is isotropic; for such a form over a number field the only isotropy obstructions are definite signatures at real places.
As a concrete application, take nonsquare . Then is a global norm from if and only if at every place. The local conditions make the ternary form isotropic everywhere. Hasse-Minkowski theorem gives a global solution of ; since is nonsquare, cannot be zero, and division by gives the global norm. For example fails to be a norm from already at the real place. Thus the quadratic Hilbert symbol detects local norm solvability, while the Hasse-Minkowski theorem turns solvability at all places into a global quadratic solution. The reciprocity and local-to-global theorems in this essay are stated as standard results; the norm interpretation, bilinearity and application are derived above.
Normalize the discrete valuations so a uniformiser has value one, and write for the residue fields. The ramification index is specified by , and the residue degree is . For finite extensions of complete discretely valued fields, . One way to see the degree equality is that is a finite free -module of rank ; reduction modulo a uniformiser of has successive quotients isomorphic to , hence dimension over .
An unramified extension has and separable residue extension, equivalently with separable residue extension. A totally ramified extension has , equivalently . The separability condition in the unramified extension definition matters if the residue field is imperfect; it is automatic for finite residue fields.
Suppose is unramified. Choose a primitive element of a field extension for the finite separable extension and lift it to . Since the residue degree of is at least , necessarily . Its monic minimal polynomial of an algebraic element has coefficients in . Its reduction has degree and annihilates , whose minimal polynomial over has that same degree. The two coincide, so is separable.
Conversely, suppose , , and is separable. It must be irreducible: otherwise its coprime factors lift by the factorization form of Hensel's lemma, contradicting irreducibility of . Hence has degree over . The degree equality forces and , and the residue extension is separable. We have proved the unramified generator criterion with separable reduction:
Now let , . Every element of is a simple root of , whose derivative is a unit at each root. Hensel's lemma lifts each of these elements uniquely to a root in . Thus contains all roots of ; these are the nonzero Teichmuller lifts.
More generally, a root of unity of order prime to reduces injectively into . Indeed, if such a root reduces to , uniqueness in Hensel's lemma for makes it equal to . Consequently every prime-to- order divides .
A root whose order has a nontrivial -part produces a primitive th root of unity . It reduces to in characteristic . Since
all the factors have the same positive integral valuation. Hence
This is the ramification bound for a primitive pth root of unity. Therefore
For the hypothesis cannot occur, so that instance is vacuous rather than a claim excluding the ever-present root .
For a finite extension of local fields , restriction multiplies the local Brauer invariant by and corestriction preserves it. For restriction, the residue-character value multiplies by the residue degree and the parameter valuation by the ramification index. For corestriction, lift the residue character using divisibility of and use the norm projection formula for cyclic Brauer pairings.