Cyclic local norm index Created 2026-10-07 Updated 2026-10-14
For a cyclic extension of p-adic fields, the Herbrand quotient of the local multiplicative group together with Hilbert theorem 90 gives this index. If the ramification index and residue degree are , the norm valuation formula then gives the unit norm index . In particular all units are norms in an unramified extension.
Existence and uniqueness of unramified local extensions Created 2026-10-05 Updated 2026-10-07
For a non-Archimedean local field , every finite extension of its residue field is realized by an unramified extension of , unique up to -isomorphism. Lift the irreducible polynomial of a residue generator to a monic integral polynomial and adjoin a root. Its residue degree equals its field degree, forcing ramification index one. In any other such extension the Hensel lemma lifts the same simple residue root, giving an isomorphism.
Finiteness of fixed-degree extensions of a p-adic field Created 2026-10-07 Updated 2026-10-14
A p-adic field has only finitely many extensions of a fixed degree up to isomorphism. There are finitely many possible residue degrees and a unique unramified extension of each such degree. Over each maximal unramified subfield, a totally ramified extension is generated by a root of an Eisenstein polynomial. The coefficient space of these polynomials of fixed degree is compact. Hensel lemma and Krasner's lemma show that sufficiently close polynomials generate isomorphic extensions, giving a finite cover by neighborhoods of a constant extension type.
For a number field and finite subgroup , adjoining all the indicated nth roots gives an extension unramified outside the displayed finite set. The valuations modulo are independent of representatives. At a finite place outside , divide each radicand by a local nth power of a uniformizer to obtain a unit. Its polynomial has separable reduction because is invertible. A finite unramified extension containing all residue roots contains all lifted roots by Hensel's lemma. This proof does not require .
In the square-class group of a p-adic field, the unit subgroup consists of classes of even valuation. The unramified subgroup consists of the trivial class and the unique nonsquare class defining an unramified extension of degree two. For odd , the two subgroups coincide with for a nonsquare unit . For , they are and . Norms from an unramified quadratic local field extension have even valuation, and every unit is a norm. The norm characterization of the quadratic Hilbert symbol therefore gives both displayed annihilator identities. Over , the unramified class is because satisfies , whose reduction modulo two is irreducible and separable.
For an unramified extension of non-Archimedean local fields and any finite extension , reduction is a bijection between -field homomorphisms and -field homomorphisms . Choose an integral generator with separable irreducible reduction. Each specified residue image lifts uniquely to a root in by Hensel lemma. Conversely a -embedding preserves the unique extended valuation and therefore induces the residue embedding. The same argument applies when is any non-Archimedean local extension with the given compatible embedding of .
Local fundamental class 2026-10-14
For a finite Galois extension of non-Archimedean local fields, its relative Brauer group is the kernel of restriction and identifies with . Restriction multiplies the local Brauer invariant by . This kernel is therefore cyclic of order , and the indicated class is its distinguished generator. In an unramified extension with arithmetic Frobenius generator it is represented by the cyclic algebra with parameter a uniformizer.
Only the prime two can ramify. More precisely, every field is unramified at every odd prime; actual ramification at two depends on and the chosen division point. Use , as printed in the original PDF.
Fix an odd prime and put . The elliptic-curve discriminant gives good reduction at , and is a unit in . The unramified division torsors at good primes imply that all division points of an elliptic curve above are defined over finite unramified extensions of . Here is a direct lifting proof, which does not require to have integral affine coordinates.
Properness gives a reduction . Choose a point with over the algebraic closure of the residue field, and a finite residue extension containing it. Pass to the corresponding finite unramified extension . The surjectivity of good reduction over a local field lifts to . Its error lies in the kernel of reduction of an elliptic curve. The prime-to-residue-characteristic multiplication on a formal group makes bijective on that kernel. Choose the unique kernel point with ; then satisfies and has reduction .
Every algebraic division point has some such reduction and is the unique lift in its division fibre: the difference of two lifts lies in the reduction kernel, which has no -torsion. Thus every chosen lies in an unramified local extension. For every prime of its possibly non-Galois coordinate field above , the ramification index is one. Globally,
One cannot universally assert that two actually ramifies: and give the field . It can ramify. For example, a half of is
The elliptic curve group law verifies this by doubling. Its coordinate field contains , which has ramification in the quadratic extension generated by the square root of two, so the only possible bad prime does occur for this choice.
Let be a primitive nth root of unity. The cyclotomic polynomial is
Induction on shows that is monic with integer coefficients. Here is the essential irreducibility of cyclotomic polynomials argument. Let be the minimal polynomial of and let be a prime. If had a different monic irreducible polynomial , then . Reducing modulo gives , so and have a common factor. As , this would give a repeated factor of modulo , impossible because its derivative is . Thus is conjugate to . Every positive integer prime to is a product of such primes, so all primitive nth roots of unity are conjugate. Consequently
In particular the cyclotomic field is an abelian extension. Complex conjugation corresponds to ; for its fixed field is , the maximal real subfield, of degree .
The ring of integers is . One way to see that there is no missing index is to work at each prime . Write with . The prime-to- roots of unity have separable reduction; their local factors generate unramified extensions with full integer rings. Over each such factor, adjoining is generated by the Eisenstein polynomial , with uniformizer , and hence gives the full integer ring of that totally ramified factor. The coprimality of and means that generates both sets of roots of unity. Thus is maximal at every , proving the integral assertion.
The same local description computes ramification and splitting. For , the ramification index is one, the residue degree is the multiplicative order of modulo , and there are primes above . If , put ; then
where . Indeed, the prime-to- part is unramified, and the -power part is totally ramified by the preceding Eisenstein polynomial. Notice the exception : its ramification index is one, consistently with for odd . Thus finite ramification occurs only at the indicated conductor primes, with that exception.
We now prove cyclotomic Artin reciprocity over the rational numbers, using arithmetic Frobenius automorphisms. If and lies over , then Frobenius sends the reduction of to its th power. Distinct nth roots of unity remain distinct modulo , since has separable reduction. Hence the Artin symbol is exactly
Extend multiplicatively to the group of rational fractional ideals prime to . Such an ideal has a unique positive rational generator whose numerator and denominator are prime to . The formula is
Every unit residue modulo has a positive integer representative prime to , so this Artin map is surjective. Its kernel is precisely the subgroup generated by positive . Therefore
This proves the Artin reciprocity law for this extension, including its principal-ray kernel. The infinite component of the modulus records positivity and therefore the possible action of complex conjugation.
Write for the valuation ring of , for a uniformizer, , and for the residue field. A useful strong form of Hensel lemma is the following: if and satisfy
then there is a root with , unique among roots in that ball. If , its distance satisfies .
Here is a proof by successive correction. Put , , and
Stop if a root has already been reached. Otherwise the correction has valuation . Integral Taylor expansions show that and
Thus grows at least geometrically, the corrections tend to zero, and completeness gives a limit with . The first correction has strictly smaller valuation than every later nonzero correction, proving the asserted distance. If are in the ball , then
The second factor cannot vanish. Two roots in the ball must therefore coincide. This proves Hensel lemma; in particular a simple root modulo has a unique lift with that residue.
We use this to establish existence and uniqueness of unramified local extensions. For each integer , choose a monic irreducible polynomial of degree and lift it to a monic . Reduction and Gauss lemma show that remains irreducible over . Let
The ring is finite free and complete over , and . An element outside is invertible: lift an inverse from the residue field and invert the remaining by a convergent geometric series. Every nonzero element of is times such a unit, since in a finite free module. Thus is a discrete valuation ring, its fraction field is , and
This constructs an unramified extension of each degree.
Conversely, let be an unramified extension of degree . Its residue field is the unique degree- finite field extension . Choose a residue root of in it. The root is simple, so Hensel lemma lifts it to a root of in . This embeds into , and equality of degrees makes it an isomorphism. All residue conjugates lift in itself; hence is Galois, and reduction identifies its Galois group with the cyclic Galois group of the residue field extension. Its distinguished Frobenius automorphism reduces to .
There is exactly one unramified extension of each degree inside a fixed algebraic closure, and
For the middle equality, every nonzero element of lifts uniquely to a st root of unity, because that exponent is prime to . A primitive such residue generates the finite field extension, so its lift generates . Taking the union gives the maximal unramified extension, with Galois group .
We give the full local-field norm-index argument. Let be cyclic of order . On an additive -module set and . The two cyclic Tate cohomology groups are
When these are finite, the Herbrand quotient is . The periodic complex alternating and yields a six-term periodic exact sequence from a short exact sequence of modules. Taking alternating products of orders in that exact sequence proves
For a finite module, and show that the two Tate cohomology groups have equal order. Thus the Herbrand quotient of a finite module is one. For the trivial integral module , the two groups are and zero, giving .
We also need cyclic cohomology of a regular lattice. In , fixed coefficient vectors are constant, and every such vector is a norm of a basis vector times its coefficient. The kernel of consists of vectors whose coefficient sum is zero. For such a vector , solve successively around the cycle; the final equation holds precisely because . Thus . Both Tate cohomology groups vanish, so , for or , and likewise for finite direct sums.
Now take a cyclic extension of p-adic fields of degree . Write . For , the convergent p-adic logarithm and p-adic exponential give mutually inverse -equivariant group isomorphisms
where the right side is additive. The convergence assertion follows from the estimates and ; formal inverse identities therefore hold on this ball.
By the normal basis theorem, choose so that is a -basis of . The lattice is a regular -module. It is a finite direct sum of regular -modules, hence its Tate cohomology vanishes. The lattices and are commensurable: their intersection has finite index in both. The exact sequences with these finite quotients establish finiteness of the Tate cohomology groups and show . Thus . Since is finite, as well.
The -equivariant valuation exact sequence is
Its last term has trivial -action. The multiplication rule gives the Herbrand quotient of the local multiplicative group:
All the Tate cohomology groups here are finite by the lattice argument and the exact sequence; finiteness of the norm index has not been assumed.
For completeness we prove the needed Hilbert theorem 90. If has field norm one, put and . The linear map is not zero by linear independence of distinct field embeddings. Choose with . The relation gives , so . This proves . The zeroth Tate cohomology group is . Consequently the cyclic local norm index is
Writing , the valuation of a field norm is . The valuation quotient has order , and a norm with valuation zero comes from a unit. Therefore
In particular every unit is a norm in an unramified extension. These results give the norm assertions used in the quadratic Hilbert symbol computation.
We finish with the Hasse norm theorem: for a cyclic extension of number fields, an element is a global norm if and only if it is a norm at every place. More precisely the local norm is the norm from the product ; in a Galois extension its factors have the same norm subgroup. The forward implication is immediate. For the converse associate to the cyclic algebra . The splitting criterion for a cyclic algebra, proved below, identifies its splitting with . At a place where the tensor product of fields has several factors, this algebra is a matrix algebra over the cyclic algebra of one decomposition-field factor, with the generator restricted to its cyclic decomposition subgroup. Thus the local norm assumption makes its Brauer class zero at every place. Injectivity in the Albert-Brauer-Hasse-Noether theorem makes the global Brauer class zero, giving the desired global norm. This is the required proof outline; cyclicity is essential to this reduction.
A central simple algebra over is a finite-dimensional associative -algebra with no nonzero proper two-sided ideals and with center . The Artin–Wedderburn theorem writes it uniquely as with a central division algebra. After a finite separable splitting field extension it becomes , so its dimension is , and is its degree of a central simple algebra. Passing from to a matrix algebra over does not change its Brauer class.
The Brauer group consists of these classes, with product induced by tensor product. Extending to a common splitting field shows that a tensor product of central simple algebras is again central simple; its two-sided ideals and center descend from the corresponding full matrix algebra. The neutral class is , and the inverse of is , because
The displayed map becomes the standard isomorphism for matrices over a splitting field, so it is already an isomorphism over . Thus Brauer classes measure precisely the obstruction to being a split matrix algebra.
An explicit family is supplied by cyclic algebras. Let be cyclic of degree , with generator , and let . Define
This is an associative algebra: form the skew polynomial ring with relation and quotient by the central relation . Reduction of powers gives the displayed -dimensional -basis. An element commuting with every has no coefficient for , since is not the identity. Commuting also with forces the remaining coefficient into . Hence the center is .
Here is an explicit splitting construction. On , with basis , put
Then and . After extending scalars to , the separable decomposition supplies all diagonal matrices, and their products with powers of supply all matrix units. Therefore
Any nonzero proper two-sided ideal of would extend to one of , which is impossible. Thus this construction really gives a central simple algebra, with splitting field .
Its central arithmetic feature is the splitting criterion for a cyclic algebra:
If , let act by multiplication on the -vector space , and let act as . Its nth power is multiplication by , so this gives a representation . It is injective by simplicity and an isomorphism by equal dimension. Conversely, if with , its embedded field makes one-dimensional over . The relation for says that is -semilinear. In an -basis it must have the form , whose nth power is . The relation forces .
More generally the crossed-product algebra of a Galois extension attaches an algebra to a multiplicative two-cocycle. Changing the cocycle by a coboundary rescales its basis and preserves the Brauer class. Descent of a split matrix algebra identifies
For cyclic , cyclic Tate cohomology identifies this second cohomology group with . In a crossed product, rescale successive cyclic basis elements to powers of a single ; the remaining datum is , changed by a field norm when is rescaled. This explains why cyclic algebras give every class split by a cyclic extension, and why multiplication of their parameters is addition of their Brauer classes.
For a finite field , every finite splitting field is cyclic over . The field norm is the power map on its cyclic multiplicative group, and is onto . Thus every relative Brauer class is zero, and every central simple algebra has zero class:
For a non-Archimedean local field , the valuation classification of central division algebras shows that every Brauer class splits over a finite unramified extension. For the degree- unramified extension with arithmetic Frobenius , units are norms and norm valuations are multiples of . Hence the cyclic relative Brauer group is , represented by . The compatible local Brauer invariant is
The union over all gives
A class with invariant in lowest terms has a central division algebra representative of degree of a central simple algebra . This is the local valuation classification used above; the explicit cyclic algebras exhibit all of its invariants. At the Archimedean places, , while : its nontrivial class is the quaternion algebra , since complex norms are positive.
For a number field, the Albert-Brauer-Hasse-Noether theorem describes the Brauer group by the exact sequence
Thus its classes are exactly finite-support families of local invariants with sum zero; real invariants are or and complex invariants are zero. Every global Brauer class has a cyclic splitting extension, so cyclic algebras also realize all global classes. If , their local invariants are , with restricted to the local decomposition subgroup. The sum-zero relation for a principal parameter is the invariant form of Artin reciprocity. Injectivity supplies the local-to-global splitting test, which yields the Hasse norm theorem for cyclic extensions as explained in the preceding solution. Here the local valuation classification and the global invariant theorem are the structural theorems used to describe the Brauer groups; the construction and norm-splitting calculation have been proved explicitly.
Fix a prime of over , and a prime of over . Let be its restriction to . Inside the completed compositum, put
The assumption means is an unramified extension. Its residue degree is some ; the completed extension is the corresponding compositum . It suffices to prove that this is unramified, regardless of the ramification of .
Here is a proof of unramified extensions remain unramified under base change using the classification already established. Choose an integral generator of whose monic minimal polynomial has irreducible separable reduction of degree . Write and . Let be the degree- unramified extension. Its residue field contains , so has a simple root there. Hensel lemma lifts this root to a root of in . This gives an -embedding .
An unramified extension of a local field is Galois, so all -embeddings of into a fixed algebraic closure have the same image. The original therefore lies in , and is an intermediate field of the unramified extension . Its ramification index is one. Since and were arbitrary,
This proof also explains why no linear-disjointness assumption on and , and no assumption that is unramified, is needed.
Normalize each finite-place valuation to have image . For a radical class , the residue of modulo is well-defined, because replacing by adds . A suitable finite set is
One can compute the last union from any finite generating set of . Each representative has only finitely many nonzero valuations, so this indeed defines a finite set depending only on and the classes, not on a choice of representatives. Including all infinite places safely allows possible real-to-complex ramification.
Fix and work over the completion . A representative has , so with a unit. Adjoining an th root of is the same as adjoining an th root of . Since is invertible in the residue field, is separable: its derivative has no common zero with it.
Take a finite extension of the finite residue field containing all roots of all these finitely many reduced polynomials. The corresponding finite unramified extension of exists by the classification proved in Question 2. Hensel's lemma lifts each simple residue root to a root of the original polynomial in that unramified extension. Thus all the required radicals, and every conjugate root, lie in an unramified local extension. Every completion of the radical field at is therefore unramified. This proves finite ramification support for radical extensions.
The local argument does not assume : adjoining all roots proves the stronger unramified assertion for the splitting field, and hence for any field obtained by choosing the radicals. For the radical extension is trivial; the displayed set is still valid.