For nonzero ideals, unique factorization of ideals in a number field converts to . Coprimality says at most one of the first two exponents is positive, so each is divisible by three. Dividing its exponents by three constructs ideals whose cubes are . If a zero ideal is allowed, coprimality forces the other ideal to be the whole ring and the conclusion is immediate with the zero ideal as its own cube.
To compute the Ideal class group of Q of square root minus thirty, put . The ring of integers is , with discriminant . The given Minkowski bound for ideal classes is . Hence the ideal class group is generated by prime ideals with ideal norm below seven. The rational primes two, three and five all ramify, giving unique prime ideals , , with and ideal norm . There is no additional prime ideal of ideal norm four because two ramifies with residue degree one; six is not a prime power. Thus these three classes generate and each has order at most two.
As , unique factorization of ideals in a number field gives , so their three classes multiply to one. None is principal: a generator of one would be an integral element of field norm equal to two, three or five, and none of those field norm equations has integer solutions. The three nontrivial classes are therefore distinct, with the third the product of the first two. Hence
To rule out integer solutions, suppose . Necessarily . If a prime divided , then reduction modulo would force . Because thirty is squarefree, the valuation of at that prime would be exactly one, while that of is a positive multiple of three, a contradiction. Thus .
If a prime ideal divided both and , it would divide their difference and their product . Its underlying rational prime would divide , hence divide thirty, and would also divide . This contradicts the gcd just proved, so the two ideals are coprime. Their product is , so the first part gives for an ideal .
In a ideal class group of exponent two, forces . Thus with . Equality of principal ideals gives for a unit . The only units are , since forces , ; both signs are cubes and can be absorbed into the generator. Comparing the coefficient of after cubing now gives
which is impossible modulo three. Therefore
An integral basis is a -basis of the ring of integers ; its elements also form a -basis of .
To prove existence, first multiply the elements of a rational basis by suitable nonzero integers to obtain an integral rational basis . Put . The trace pairing is nondegenerate in characteristic zero, and the matrix has integer entries and nonzero determinant . If is integral, all are integers, so . The adjugate formula gives . Consequently
A subgroup of a free abelian group is free, and these inclusions force rank . A -basis of is therefore an integral basis.
Now put and . The polynomial is irreducible by Eisenstein at any prime dividing the squarefree , except for , where is Eisenstein at . Thus and . Every has the unique form with . The nontrivial -automorphism sends to , so an integral has integral conjugate . Relative trace and norm of integral elements are integral in . Applying them to and taking the trace of gives
The power basis has discriminant
Indeed, the resultant of and is ; the discriminant sign factor is . By the discriminant-index formula for an integral lattice, a prime dividing must divide .
No odd prime can divide this index. The Eisenstein equation gives , while has nonintegral field norm for and : its -adic norm valuation is . If were integral, multiplication by first forces ; subtracting and multiplying by forces . Continuing forces all coefficients divisible by . This excludes an index element of order .
To exclude , any index element of order two would be represented by an integral
with integers not all even. Here and . The integrality of forces
Since , the first congruence implies have the same parity. If both were odd, the second would require , impossible. Hence are even. The second congruence then forces to have the same parity, while the first forces even. Thus are even too, a contradiction. Therefore the index is one and
For the last request, let and take . It satisfies , and hence
This monic integer polynomial proves integrality. Its coordinates in the rational power basis have halves, so . Also with a nonzero coefficient in ; if were in that quadratic field, then would be too, contradicting degree four. Thus it meets both exclusions.
An integral basis is a -basis of the ring of integers ; it consists of algebraic integers and is also a -basis of .
The lattice has finite index . Choose a prime . The finite abelian group has an element of order , represented by . Thus
If all were divisible by , cancellation in the characteristic-zero field would put in , a contradiction. The discriminant-index formula for an integral lattice gives
where is an integer. Hence , and the required integral element is .
Let , whose minimal polynomial is . For , the cyclic group has a nontrivial cube root of unity . Then and are distinct roots of . By the Kummer-Dedekind theorem,
Since the given ring of integers is a principal ideal domain, write . Its norm is
Multiplication by completes the square:
Thus and supply the required integers.
Choose a nonzero integral ideal whose class is ; one obtains such an ideal by multiplying the fractional ideal by a suitable nonzero integer. The assumed Minkowski bound for ideal classes gives with
Because and nonzero ideals of the ring of integers are invertible,
It is an integral ideal in class . By multiplicativity of the ideal norm,
The same argument applies if the starting is a fractional ideal, since its class is unchanged by clearing denominators.
Power basis 2026-10-31
If is a simple algebraic field extension of degree , the displayed powers form a basis. The minimal polynomial of reduces every higher power to a linear combination of them, while a nontrivial linear relation among the first powers would give a polynomial of degree below the minimal polynomial vanishing at . If is an algebraic integer over the rational numbers, this is a basis of the order as a free abelian group; it need not be an integral basis of the whole ring of integers.
For an integral generator of a number field, let and suppose is coprime to . Localizing at makes and the ring of integers equal, so reduction gives the displayed quotient ring. If with distinct monic irreducible polynomials, the Chinese remainder theorem gives local factors . Their residue fields have degrees and their maximal ideals have nilpotence indices of an ideal . Localizing the Dedekind domain at the corresponding prime ideals gives discrete valuation rings, where this same nilpotence index of an ideal is the ramification index of a prime ideal. Thus and each residue degree is .
Let be a positive square-free integer congruent to one modulo four, with distinct prime factors . The ring of integers is . Each ramified prime ideal satisfies , so its ideal class has order dividing two. Their product is the principal ideal .
There are no further subset relations. For a nonempty proper subset , put . If , the ideal norm gives . But forces and makes the square-free integer a square, a contradiction. Thus the homomorphism defined by the ramified classes has exactly the all-ones relation, and its image is . This identifies a subgroup, without asserting that these classes exhaust the ideal class group.
The ring of integers is , where , and its class number is one by the Minkowski bound for ideal classes. Modulo seven it is . The six roots of unity reduce to the kernel of the product map on the two residue unit groups, so the ray class group is , of order six. The relative Artin symbol on is exponentiation by the norm of a fractional ideal modulo seven. It kills the principal ray subgroup, and , proving that this is the ray class field.
Ring of integers Created 2026-10-14 Updated 2026-10-25
The ring of integers of a number field is
It is the integral closure of in . Its additive group is a free abelian group of rank , so an integral basis writes every element uniquely as with . Its field of fractions is .[ref]
For , this gives ; for , it gives . The Gaussian integers give the corresponding example inside . The ring of integers is determined by the field, and need not equal for a chosen algebraic integer generator: in , the larger ring contains with index two.
This is the setting for divisibility, global units, and prime ideal factorization. A ring of integers is a Dedekind domain, so every nonzero proper ideal factors uniquely into nonzero prime ideals, even when unique factorization of elements fails.[ref]
Ring of integers of Q of square root two Created 2026-09-29 Updated 2026-10-14
Since , the ring of integers of is
with integral basis and field discriminant eight. Multiplication is ordinary polynomial multiplication followed by :
For example, and . The integer coefficients stay integral, as required for a ring.
Under the two field embeddings, the element becomes the point . The integral basis vectors become and , giving a Minkowski embedding of a real quadratic field. Their determinant has absolute value , consistent with the field discriminant.
Figure 1.
The two real embeddings turn the integers adjoined square root two into a lattice
. Left: the integer lattice of coefficients . Right: the Minkowski embedding of a real quadratic field, . The highlighted cells use the same integral basis; their areas are and . Each image point has field norm , so the marked units lie on the hyperbolas . Only a finite portion is shown. Details.
For a finite Galois extension of number fields, choose a nonzero residue field generator at and lift it to an integral element whose residues at the other primes above are zero, using the Chinese remainder theorem. The orbit polynomial has coefficients in the base ring of integers. Modulo , its nonzero roots are precisely the orbit of under the decomposition group. Its coefficients belong to , so finite-field Frobenius automorphism permutes these roots. Consequently some decomposition-group element acts as Frobenius on the generator, and therefore on the entire residue field. Frobenius generates the finite-field Galois group, proving surjectivity.