For each place of a number field , let be the corresponding completion, and for finite let be its valuation ring. The adele ring is the restricted product
Its restricted product topology has basic open sets , where every is open and at all but finitely many finite places.
First take . The neighborhood
of zero meets the diagonal copy of only in zero: a rational number lying in every is an integer, and the only integer in the indicated real interval is zero. Thus is discrete in .
Every rational adele is congruent modulo to an element of
Indeed, the finitely many negative -adic principal parts can be removed simultaneously by subtracting a rational number, using the Chinese remainder theorem; subtracting an integer then moves the real component into . This set is compact by the compactness of , the compactness of every , and the Tychonoff theorem. Its image covers the quotient, so is compact.
Now choose a -basis of the number field . The given topological isomorphism
identifies the additive pair with . A finite product of discrete subgroups is discrete, and
is compact.
The idele group is
where the distinguished subgroup at a finite place is . It carries the corresponding restricted product topology on the idele group. The inclusion is continuous: the inverse image of a basic adelic open set is locally a product of open subsets of , and outside finitely many places every idele component already belongs to .
It is not a homeomorphism onto its image. Let be the th rational prime and define the idele to equal at the place over and everywhere else. In the adele topology, : the difference is zero at every fixed place once is large, while at the single moving place. In the idele topology the sequence does not converge to , because the open neighborhood
contains no : its -component has positive valuation and is not a unit. Hence the inverse of on its image is not continuous.
The adele ring is the restricted product
Addition and multiplication are componentwise. If outside finite sets, then outside their union, so these operations are closed on . The componentwise ring axioms make it a ring. Its restricted product topology has basic open sets with each open and at all but finitely many finite places.