Past exam of the mathematics course of the University of Cambridge 2023 ii Paper 4 20H c Solution Created 2026-09-24 Updated 2026-09-25
Assume that is a primitive fifth root of unity. The cyclotomic field has degree four and signature . The Dirichlet unit theorem therefore gives free rankThe roots of unity in a rational cyclotomic field are the ten elements , so
For explicit units, has order ten, whileHence is a unit. It has infinite order because in the standard complex embeddingwhereas every root of unity has modulus one. Its image in the free factor is therefore nonzero and generates a finite-index subgroup of that factor. Consequentlyhas finite index in , as described by the unit group of the fifth cyclotomic field.