Let be prime, , and . Fermat's little theorem makes the displayed multiplication well defined. Its identity is and inverse is ; associativity follows by expanding both bracketings. Projection onto the first coordinate is a group homomorphism with normal cyclic kernel of order . Under the change , multiplication becomes , the semidirect product of the additive prime field by the cyclic group of order . The group is abelian precisely when ; need not be a generator of the multiplicative field group.
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