Past exam of the mathematics course of the University of Cambridge 2004 iii Paper 25 1 ii Solution Created 2026-10-03 Updated 2026-10-14
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 isOne 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.
Past exam of the mathematics course of the University of Cambridge 2004 iii Paper 25 2 Solution Created 2026-10-03 Updated 2026-10-14
Use the following simple-root Hensel lemma. Let be a complete discrete valuation ring, with maximal ideal , and let . If and , there is a unique with and .
For the proof, define Newton's method iterates . Each denominator stays a unit, because all iterates are congruent to . Taylor's polynomial identity givesIf an iterate is already a root, the process stops. Otherwise these valuations tend to infinity, so the iterates form a Cauchy sequence in the complete ring. Its limit has the required residue and satisfies . If were two such roots, thenThe parenthesis is a unit, forcing .
Now let be finite, with residue field . For every choose a monic irreducible polynomial of degree and lift it to a monic . The lift is irreducible over , since a factorization would reduce to a factorization of , by the monic form of Gauss's lemma over the valuation ring. If for a root, its residue field contains of degree . The inequality forces residue degree and ramification index one. Thus it is an unramified extension of degree .
Conversely, in any unramified extension of degree , choose a generator of its residue field and lift its separable minimal polynomial. Hensel's lemma supplies a root with that residue. Its degree is at least and hence it generates the extension. The same unique lifting of all residue conjugates shows that the extension is Galois andOne can see uniqueness inside a fixed algebraic closure explicitly: the roots of lift all nonzero residue elements, and a lifted primitive residue element generates the extension. Hencewith arithmetic Frobenius acting by . The case simply gives . These are all finite unramified extensions; exactly when . Their union is the maximal unramified extension, whose Galois group is .
Finally prove norm-surjectivity on units using the Herbrand quotient. For a cyclic group of order , writeThe quotient is multiplicative on short exact sequences, equals one for finite modules, equals on the trivial module , and equals one on induced regular modules. For a finite module, the equality follows directly from .
Let . For sufficiently large , the equivariant p-adic logarithm identifies with additively. In the unramified case this is an induced regular lattice. Indeed choose a normal basis of the finite residue extension and lift its generating element. Its Galois conjugates reduce to a basis and hence form an -basis of ; their coordinate determinant is a unit. Since a uniformizer of is also one of , multiplication by its th power gives the same regular-module structure on . For a regular module, invariants are norm images and a vector of coefficient sum zero is a cyclic difference, so both indicated Tate cohomology groups vanish. Consequently . The quotient is finite, so .
Apply multiplicativity toIt gives . Hilbert 90 makes trivial, so . On the other handso the quotient maps onto . As its order is already , its unit kernel is trivial. A norm which is a unit comes from a unit, by the same valuation formula. ThereforeThe standard normal-basis theorem for finite fields and the convergent logarithm/exponential on sufficiently deep principal units are the ingredients used in evaluating the Herbrand quotient; the norm conclusion itself has been deduced here.
Past exam of the mathematics course of the University of Cambridge 2004 iii Paper 25 5 ii Solution Created 2026-10-03 Updated 2026-10-14
Put . Since is squarefree,We first compute the ideal class group, rather than assume the proposed extension has the full Hilbert-class-field degree.
The real quadratic Minkowski bound for ideal classes is . Thus every ideal class has an integral representative of norm at most seven. The prime two is inert because , while seven is inert because is a nonsquare. The inert ideal has norm four and is principal; a prime above seven has norm forty-nine. The only possible nonprincipal prime factors of these small representatives are therefore primes above three and five.
Reduction of gives roots modulo three and modulo five. WriteTheir conjugate pairs multiply to and . Direct norm calculations giveThe element vanishes at the residue roots modulo three and modulo five, and not at the conjugate roots. Its absolute norm forces each exponent to be one. Likewise vanishes only at the root zero modulo three, and its norm forces exponent three. ThusThese also give the factorizations suggested by the hint: and . The classes of generate the ideal class group; the first relation makes and the second makes . Hence the class number divides three.
It is not one. The algebraic integerso it is a unit. If were principal, its generator would have norm . Multiply by a suitable integer power of so thatIts conjugate then also has absolute value at most because . ThereforeThe final inequality is , immediate from the displayed value of . Thus the integer is zero, which makes impossible. ConsequentlyThis proves the ideal class group of Q of square root 229. No claim that is a fundamental unit is needed. Its norm minus one also realizes all real sign patterns after multiplication by , so the ordinary and narrow class numbers agree.
Now let and let be its splitting field. The possible rational roots are not roots, so is irreducible. Its discriminant isThus its Galois group is , since an irreducible cubic has group precisely when its discriminant is a square. Its quadratic subfield is , and is cyclic of degree three. If is one root, then .
For every rational prime , the reduction of is separable. Its roots lift in an unramified extension containing its residue splitting field, by Hensel's lemma. Hence its splitting field is unramified over at all these primes, and consequently over there.
At 229 there is exactly one double residue root and one simple root:The simple root lifts to , and division gives with monic quadratic. The discriminant-product identity isHere is a unit, since has the simple residue root. Therefore the quadratic discriminant has valuation one, and its root field is the ramified quadratic field . This is already the completion of . The local splitting field has no further extension over it: the simple root lies in and the other two lie in that quadratic field. Thus is unramified even at 229. Equivalently its rational inertia is a transposition and has trivial intersection with .
The positive cubic discriminant gives three distinct real roots, so is totally real and there is no infinite ramification over . We have exhibited an everywhere-unramified cyclic extension of degree . The Hilbert-class-field characterization in part (i) now proves
Finally let be rational prime. A prime ideal of norm is principal if and only if its Artin symbol in is trivial. If it is principal, a generator has norm ; multiplying by the norm-minus-one unit if necessary gives norm . Conversely an element of norm generates a prime ideal of norm . Hence representation by is equivalent to splitting in with trivial Artin symbol in , or to complete splitting of in .
Let be its rational Frobenius, defined up to conjugacy. Its restriction to the discriminant quadratic field is its sign. The splitting criterion for that quadratic field isFor odd this follows by quadratic reciprocity from the character of discriminant 229; for both criteria are negative since . The polynomial is separable modulo , and the degrees of its factors are the cycle lengths of . Thus a root modulo means that fixes a root. An even permutation of three letters with a fixed point is the identity: a nonidentity three-cycle has none. Therefore the two stated conditions together are exactly complete splitting in , andThis is prime representation by the norm form of Q of square root 229, with the norm sign and the prime two explicitly covered.
Past exam of the mathematics course of the University of Cambridge 2005 iii Paper 31 1 ii Solution Created 2026-10-03 Updated 2026-10-14
Use arithmetic Frobenius automorphisms: residues are raised to the size of the base residue field. Let contain the finite primes ramified in the finite abelian extension . The Artin map is the group homomorphismwhere is the group of fractional ideals supported outside . The Artin symbol is independent of the prime above , since the extension is abelian. Commutativity makes the displayed extension from prime ideals well defined. Defining this map does not yet assert the Artin reciprocity law, which describes its congruence group kernel.
For an intermediate field , restriction givesTo prove it, start with an unramified prime and a prime of above it. Its Frobenius automorphism acts on the residue of every integral element of by raising it to . Its restriction is therefore the Frobenius automorphism for at the restricted prime. The identity for all allowed fractional ideals follows by the group homomorphism property. On Galois groups, restriction is the quotient by , so passing to a subextension quotients the Artin map accordingly.
Now let be any finite extension and put . This is the translated extension: is abelian, and restriction identifies with . A prime of above a prime is unramified in , because forming a compositum with preserves an unramified extension. Put . The residue-field sizes satisfy . Consequently the restriction to of Frobenius at acts on its integral residues by raising them to , givingBut the ideal norm is . Multiplying this prime-by-prime identity provesThis is restriction and norm compatibility of the Artin map. The fractional ideal must be supported over primes unramified in . No assumption that itself is unramified or Galois is needed. With geometric rather than arithmetic Frobenius, both maps are inverted and the compatibility identities remain unchanged.
Past exam of the mathematics course of the University of Cambridge 2005 iii Paper 31 2 ii Solution Created 2026-10-03 Updated 2026-10-14
For , the quadratic Hilbert symbol is one if is a field norm from , and minus one otherwise; a square gives the trivial extension and symbol one. It depends only on the two square classes. Equivalently, the conic has a nonzero rational point precisely when the symbol is one. Interchanging and in the conic gives . The Hilbert norm residue symbol is a group homomorphism in each argument; for nonsquare , the cyclic local norm index makes its group kernel a subgroup of index two. The resulting pairing on square classes is nondegenerate. Alsosince . In the language of local class field theory, ; in the Brauer group, it records whether the quaternion cyclic algebra splits. These are compatible norm-obstruction descriptions.
An unramified extension of local fields of degree two has norm group consisting precisely of elements with even valuation. Indeed,and the norms on units are surjective. For the latter assertion, the norm on the finite residue fields is surjective. On successive higher principal-unit groups, the congruenceallows one to correct a proposed unit norm one digit at a time: the residue field trace is surjective, and completeness makes the corrections converge. An unramified quadratic field is unique up to isomorphism. Therefore, if is its defining nonsquare class,
For odd , choose the nonsquare unit from part (i). The polynomial has irreducible separable reduction, so it defines the unramified quadratic extension. ThusThe trivial class is included in , since a degree-one extension is unramified. The two units pair trivially, while . Any class outside has odd valuation and consequently pairs nontrivially with . This proves directly
For , the unit square classes from part (i) give . The element satisfies ; its reduction is irreducible and separable over . This shows that is unramified of degree two, givingFor a fully explicit pairing check, use the generators . We have and , since and from . But : a norm equal to would be a sum of two squares. If either summand had negative valuation, the sum would have negative valuation (equal negative valuations give valuation ); if both were integral, their squares could not sum to . Finally, the unramified norm criterion gives . The identity and determine the remaining entries. Writing , the exponent matrix isFor , annihilating both generators of requires , so . Annihilating alone requires , so is a unit class. HenceThese are the Hilbert-symbol annihilators of units and unramified square classes. Annihilators here are taken with respect to this pairing, or equivalently in the character group of a finite abelian group after identifying square classes with their Hilbert-symbol characters.
Past exam of the mathematics course of the University of Cambridge 2007 iii Paper 27 2 ii Solution Created 2026-10-03 Updated 2026-10-14
The Weak Mordell-Weil theorem asserts that is finite for an elliptic curve over a number field and an integer . The role of (i) is to make division by possible in the local formal group of an elliptic curve whenever the residue characteristic does not divide .
Let be a finite place with good reduction of an elliptic curve and . The kernel of reduction of an elliptic curve is parametrized by in the maximal ideal of the local valuation ring. Multiplication by is represented by an integral formal power seriesIts linear coefficient is a local unit. Part (i) supplies an integral compositional inverse. Both series converge on the maximal ideal, so multiplication by is a bijection on the reduction kernel, over the local field and over every finite unramified extension.
This implies unramified division torsors at good primes. For , first divide its reduction by over the algebraic closure of the residue field. Multiplication by on the reduced curve is surjective and separable, so the chosen division point is defined over some finite residue extension. Smooth lifting gives a point over the corresponding unramified local extension with the required reduction. The difference lies in the reduction kernel; the inverse series supplies with . Thus divides over an unramified extension. Applying the same reasoning to all reduced -torsion points lifts all of , so every point of lies in the maximal unramified extension. This excludes ramification outside a fixed finite set consisting of primes of bad reduction and primes over .
For completeness, the remaining global finiteness step in the Kummer-theoretic proof of the weak Mordell-Weil theorem is as follows. Choose with . The cocycle defines the Kummer map of an elliptic curveChanging by an -torsion point changes the cocycle by a coboundary. A zero class makes rational after that change, so the map is injective.
Let , fixed independently of . Since the torsion is rational over , the cocycle restricted to its Galois group is a homomorphism into . Consequently is Galois of degree at most , contains the entire division fibre, and is unramified outside . Hence . There are only finitely many extensions of bounded degree unramified outside a fixed finite set: local extensions of bounded degree have bounded field discriminant exponents, and the Hermite–Minkowski theorem then applies to the bounded global field discriminants. Their finite Galois compositum contains every such division fibre; each is stable over because it contains and the whole fibre above the rational point . All the Kummer classes consequently factor through the fixed finite group with values in the fixed finite group . There are only finitely many such cocycles, provingThus (i) provides the local division step that bounds ramification; the global arithmetic finiteness completes the argument.
Past exam of the mathematics course of the University of Cambridge 2008 iii Paper 28 3 ii Solution Created 2026-10-03 Updated 2026-10-14
Reduce to . Because , the multiplication-by-n morphism on the reduced elliptic curve is a separable, surjective morphism of degree . Choose a point with . Its coordinates lie in some finite field .
Let be the finite unramified extension with residue field . The curve retains good reduction over . Its smooth integral model and the Hensel lemma give surjectivity of good reduction over a local field, so lift to some . This lift need not satisfy exactly, but its errorhas zero reduction and belongs to , the kernel of reduction of an elliptic curve.
The parameter at infinity identifies with the maximal ideal equipped with the formal group of an elliptic curve. The integral power series for and its inverse from part (i) remain integral over . They converge on : terms of degree tend to zero in valuation because their coefficients are integral and the argument has positive valuation. Hence multiplication by is bijective on . Choose its unique solution to , and put . ThenThe residue-field extension supplies a division point modulo , and the formal-group inverse corrects the error without introducing ramification. This is the local construction underlying the uniform unramified division field over a local field and unramified division torsors at good primes.
Past exam of the mathematics course of the University of Cambridge 2008 iii Paper 29 3 Solution Created 2026-10-03 Updated 2026-10-14
For an odd integer , . The same conclusion holds for every 2-adic unit by reduction modulo eight. Thus an odd square must be congruent to one modulo eight.
Conversely let with . For digit lifting for square roots of 2-adic units, start with . If is odd and , considerFor ,since the remaining term is divisible by and . The odd multiplier lets the choice of correct exactly the next binary digit. Thus . The corrections have valuations tending to infinity, so completeness gives with .
The unit is congruent to one modulo two but is not a square, and is congruent to one modulo four but is not a square, by the necessary modulo-eight condition. Therefore
Every nonzero P-adic number in is uniquely with and a 2-adic unit. A square has even valuation, and the unit square criterion shows that the unit class is determined by its odd residue modulo eight. The four residues form , generated by and ; the valuation parity supplies the third factor, generated by . Hence the square-class group of the 2-adic numbers isIts eight classes are represented by . They are distinct: the first four have even valuation and distinct unit residues modulo eight, while multiplication by gives odd valuation and the same four distinct unit residues.
In characteristic different from two, completing the square in a quadratic minimal polynomial makes every quadratic extension for a nonsquare . If , write and square. The coefficient must vanish. Since is nonsquare, , so and . Conversely a square ratio plainly gives the same field. Thus the seven quadratic extensions of the 2-adic numbers are exactly
The unique unramified extension in this list is . To verify this, is integral and satisfies . Its reduction is irreducible over , so its residue field contains . The standard degree formula for finite extensions of complete discretely valued fields with perfect residue field is . Here the field degree is two, so the residue degree is two and the ramification index is one.
Conversely an unramified quadratic extension has residue field . A root there of lifts by Hensel lemma to a root of , whose derivative is a unit. For this lift , , so the extension contains and must equal it. Every other field in the list is therefore ramified.
For the requested ramification groups, choose and . We use uniqueness of the extension of the valuation to a finite extension, together with the degree formula just stated. Since , the extension has ramification index two and residue degree one. Normalize , giving . Every element is with , and the two summands have valuations of opposite parity:Thus is integral exactly when , proving directly.
The nonidentity automorphism negates . For any integral ,of valuation at least three, with equality when is a unit. By the definition , the ramification in the quadratic extension generated by the square root of two is thereforeThe lower ramification break is two; the valuation used here is the integral normalization on .
Past exam of the mathematics course of the University of Cambridge 2009 iii Paper 28 2 Solution Created 2026-10-03 Updated 2026-10-14
All the local fields here carry normalized discrete valuations. Write for the valuation ring, for its maximal ideal, and for its residue field. We use the basic degree identity for finite extensions of non-Archimedean local fields, with the ramification index and the residue degree.
First construct the maximal unramified subextension of a local field extension inside an arbitrary finite extension . Choose a primitive element of a field extension for the finite residue field extension . Let be its monic irreducible minimal polynomial of an algebraic element, of degree , and lift its coefficients to obtain a monic of the same degree. Finite finite fields are perfect fields, so . By Hensel lemma applied in , there is reducing to with . For we haveEvery inequality is therefore an equality. In particular is unramified, , and is the minimal polynomial of an algebraic element .
If is unramified, then , so this construction gives . Taking supplies the required generator, and is a unit. Conversely suppose with integral and its monic minimal polynomial of an algebraic element satisfying . Its coefficients lie in , since all conjugates of an integral element are integral and is complete. In the constructed unramified extension the element is a simple root of . Hensel lemma in produces a root with residue . In both and lift this same simple residue root, so Hensel uniqueness gives . Thus , proving
For lifting residue-field embeddings of unramified extensions, use the generator and polynomial just constructed when is unramified. Given a -field homomorphism , its value is a simple root of . Hensel lemma in produces the unique root with that residue. The assignment defines a -field homomorphism ; it induces because generates . Conversely any such field homomorphism preserves the unique extended valuation, hence induces a residue field homomorphism, and its image of is uniquely forced by Hensel uniqueness. This proves the asserted bijection. The same proof only requires that be a non-Archimedean local field containing with its compatible valuation; its finiteness over is not essential.
Now set . The finite residue field extension has exactly automorphisms, cyclically generated by . Their unique lifts give automorphisms of . Consequently is a Galois extension, and reduction identifies its Galois group with that cyclic residue Galois group. Its generator is the arithmetic Frobenius:
For the compositum, choose a uniformizer of the totally ramified extension . The Eisenstein generator of a totally ramified extension characterization, proved in the next solution, says that and its minimal polynomial of an algebraic element is Eisenstein over . A uniformizer of remains a uniformizer in the unramified extension . All its Eisenstein coefficient conditions therefore remain true over . Thus the same Eisenstein polynomial is irreducible over and generates as a totally ramified extension. This proves is totally ramified, of degree .
Here is an explicit example showing that the converse decomposition of an arbitrary extension can fail. Take and with . Since is irreducible and separable modulo three, the degree and residue-degree argument above shows that is unramified quadratic. PutThe element is a unit in , so is Eisenstein over . Hence , , and . Moreover gives , withWe verify its Galois group, since that is what rules out a totally ramified complement. By Hensel lemma there is with : the residue root of is simple modulo three. Set . ThenThe assignments and respect the defining relation, because . They therefore define a -automorphism of . Its square satisfies and , so has order four. There are thus four automorphisms of the degree-four extension, andThis is the cyclic quartic local extension without a totally ramified complement. Its unique quadratic subfield is , fixed by , and is unramified. If with unramified and totally ramified, then and . To obtain the full degree four both would have degree two, forcing to be a totally ramified quadratic subfield. There is no such subfield. Thus is the required counterexample.
Past exam of the mathematics course of the University of Cambridge 2009 iii Paper 28 5 Solution Created 2026-10-03 Updated 2026-10-14
Fix a non-Archimedean local field , write , and use the arithmetic Frobenius normalization throughout: a uniformizer maps to the automorphism inducing on the maximal unramified extension. The Local Artin map, or local reciprocity map, is the canonical continuous group homomorphismwhere is the maximal abelian extension inside a fixed algebraic closure with its separable part understood. Its finite projection to every finite abelian extension is onto and has kernel exactly the norm subgroup of a local field extension:In particular, the quotient has order . This is how local class field theory turns abelian extension problems into computations inside a multiplicative group.
One precise definition of the finite reciprocity map uses the cup-product construction of local reciprocity. For a finite Galois extension with group , the local fundamental class is specified by local Brauer invariant . Cup product gives an isomorphismThe finite Local Artin map is its inverse, composed with the quotient map from . For abelian the target is itself. Taking the compatible inverse limit over finite abelian extensions defines .
The essential inputs to this cohomological construction have concrete arithmetic content. The local Brauer invariant identifies with ; restriction to multiplies the invariant by , so its kernel is cyclic of that order and has the distinguished generator . For every subgroup , Hilbert theorem 90 gives , while the same invariant calculation over the fixed field gives cyclic of order . These are the hypotheses of the algebraic cup-product isomorphism in Tate cohomology of a finite group. It is obtained by dimension shifting in group cohomology with a projective resolution of the trivial module and the extension representing the fundamental class. Thus the norm-kernel statement comes from the degree-zero definition of Tate cohomology of a finite group, rather than from an arbitrary assignment of an automorphism to each element. In an unramified extension of degree , the fundamental class is the cyclic algebra with arithmetic Frobenius generator and parameter a uniformizer; the isomorphism sends that Frobenius to the class of the uniformizer. This explains the chosen sign of reciprocity.
Several properties follow immediately from this construction. If are finite abelian extensions, restricting to gives . The Local Artin map is therefore compatible with the finite projections defining its infinite target. For any finite separable extension and , its norm compatibility isHere is abelian, so the displayed restriction makes sense. An outline of the compatibility proof is to use the corestriction map in group cohomology: on multiplicative coefficients its degree-zero map is the norm. The cup-product projection formula, together with restriction and corestriction of the local fundamental class, gives exactly the commuting reciprocity diagram. The compatibility is an arithmetic instance of the functoriality of the cohomological definition.
The Local Artin map has dense image, because every finite abelian quotient receives a surjective map. Its kernel is trivial, and it extends to an isomorphismwhere this profinite completion uses the open finite-index subgroups of the topological multiplicative group. The original map is generally not onto: on the unramified quotient it sends the integer valuation into , rather than producing every profinite integer. Its units map onto the abelian inertia group. For a finite abelian extension, the corresponding unit image is its inertia group, while the valuation accounts for its residue extension. Indeed , so the valuation quotient has order ; the full norm quotient has order , leaving unit image of order . Since unit images act trivially on the residue field, they give precisely the inertia group. More finely, the image of the higher principal-unit group in a finite abelian extension is its rth upper ramification group, for each integer . The use of upper ramification numbering is essential for compatibility with quotients.
The existence theorem of local class field theory states that every open finite-index subgroup is for a unique finite abelian extension . Inclusions are reversed: larger extensions have smaller norm subgroups. In the established reciprocity isomorphism, the proof is simply to take the fixed field of the open subgroup corresponding to . Conversely a finite extension gives an open kernel of a finite continuous projection. Uniqueness follows because that kernel specifies its fixed field. The substantive existence problem is therefore to prove that the reciprocity isomorphism realizes all open finite-index subgroups; it is not just this final fixed-field argument.
The Lubin–Tate description of local reciprocity provides an explicit route to that existence problem. Choose a uniformizer and a Lubin–Tate series , with its associated Lubin–Tate formal group . Solving successively by total degree constructs the law with linear part ; the analogous equations construct the endomorphisms with linear coefficient . The congruence supplies the divisibility needed at each step. These endomorphisms satisfy and make the torsion an -module.
If denotes the rfold iterate, the primitive level-r Lubin–Tate torsion points are roots ofReduction modulo is , and the constant term is , so this is an Eisenstein polynomial. Its roots therefore generate a totally ramified extension of degree . A primitive point generates the entire torsion module, and all points are its images under the integral convergent endomorphisms . The torsion field is therefore a Galois extension of . The action map into is injective, and the computed degree equals the order of this unit group, proving it is an isomorphism. Passing to the inverse limit gives for the Lubin–Tate tower .
The unramified tower and are linearly disjoint field extensions: a finite common subextension would be both unramified and totally ramified, hence trivial. The Lubin–Tate description of local reciprocity on their compositum isThe inverse on the unit action goes with the arithmetic Frobenius convention; changing to geometric Frobenius inverts the whole reciprocity map. The reciprocity theorem identifies this explicit action with the finite cup-product maps, independently of the chosen uniformizer. Its proof compares the fundamental class with the norm relations between consecutive torsion fields. The construction makes the possible finite kernels concrete: on the compositum of the degree-d unramified field with the kernel isThese subgroups are cofinal among open finite-index subgroups. Indeed any such contains for sufficiently large , and contains for some positive , since the class of in has finite order. Taking the appropriate fixed subgroup in this explicit finite compositum realizes . This proves the open-subgroup part of existence once the norm compatibility of the explicit and cohomological constructions is established. Together with the finite reciprocity maps it also shows that .
As a direct check, on a finite unramified extension the construction reduces toThe earlier elementary unit-norm proof shows its kernel is exactly . At , the Lubin–Tate cyclotomic example takes and . Its torsion is , so a unit acts by . These examples exhibit both the valuation and unit parts of local reciprocity with consistent signs.
Past exam of the mathematics course of the University of Cambridge 2010 iii Paper 24 4 a Solution Created 2026-10-03 Updated 2026-10-14
Put . For an unramified extension the ramification index is one and . The residue has degree over . Thus are linearly independent over : a nonzero linear dependence can be divided by a coefficient of least valuation and reduced to a nonzero relation among the reduced powers. Hence , and generates .
The same argument gives the integral statement, which is stronger than merely generating the field. WriteIf , divide by . Since remains a uniformizer in the unramified extension and the reduced powers form a basis of , the resulting sum has nonzero residue. Therefore . In particular is integral if and only if every coefficient is integral. This proves unramified residue generator integral basis:
Past exam of the mathematics course of the University of Cambridge 2012 iii Paper 21 2 Solution Created 2026-10-03 Updated 2026-10-07
For a complete discretely valued field with perfect residue field , the Witt residue sequence is the split exact sequenceThe first map identifies the unramified Brauer classes. The residue map is canonical; a splitting is chosen by a uniformizer and sends an unramified character to the cyclic Brauer class . Changing may change this splitting by an unramified class. This is the version of Witt's theorem used here.
Now suppose . Fix arithmetic Frobenius . Define the local Brauer invariant byHere is an explicit cohomological construction. Set and . The permitted vanishing , together with Hilbert 90 and inflation, identifies with . Normalize the valuation . Its induced map sends a multiplicative two-cocycle to the integer-valued two-cocycle , givingThe middle isomorphism is the connecting map for , since positive-degree continuous cohomology of the trivial module vanishes.
To see that the valuation map is an isomorphism, its module sequence splits using , and the unit part has zero second cohomology. For each finite unramified cyclic extension , cyclic cohomology identifies that unit contribution with . The norm on residue-field units is surjective. On the principal-unit quotient of level , the norm is the residue trace, through . The trace of a finite separable field extension is surjective; successive corrections and completeness therefore make the norm surjective on all units. Passing to the direct limit gives the asserted vanishing. Finally, a continuous character of is uniquely specified by its value on arithmetic Frobenius, and that value can be any element of . The invariant map is an isomorphism.
In concrete terms, if is the unramified extension of degree and lifts arithmetic Frobenius, the cyclic algebra with and hasIndeed its standard two-cocycle has value when the powers of wrap past and value one otherwise. Valuation turns this into the connecting cocycle for the character with Frobenius value . This also fixes the sign of the normalization.
For restriction and corestriction of local Brauer invariants, let be the residue field of , the ramification index and . A finite extension of local fields has , and . Every class of is , with unramified. After restriction to , its character has Frobenius value and its parameter has valuation . ThusFor corestriction, write a class of as . Choose a character of the finite-field absolute group such that . This is possible because restriction is multiplication by on , which is divisible. Inflate both characters to the local fields. The norm projection formula for cyclic Brauer pairings givesThis projection identity follows from the cohomological transfer and cup-product identity; on multiplicative degree-zero coefficients transfer is the field norm, and the identity in higher degree follows by the cochain definition or dimension shifting. The norm parameter has -valuation , so its invariant is . ThereforeThis argument uses the character-and-norm description directly and does not cancel multiplication by in , where such cancellation would be invalid. For purely inseparable steps in equal characteristic, absolute Galois groups identify, restriction uses inclusion of multiplicative coefficient modules, and Brauer corestriction uses the field norm on them. The same projection calculation applies. Factoring a general finite extension into separable and purely inseparable steps covers all finite extensions in the question.
Lastly, a class with invariant in lowest terms has Brauer period . The unramified extension of degree splits it, so its division-algebra degree divides . Conversely a maximal subfield of the division algebra splits it and has degree equal to that division-algebra degree; the restriction formula forces to divide that degree. These standard splitting-field properties are among the permitted inputs. Thus the index of a central simple algebra equals its period over a local field. The central division algebras of degree are exactly those with invariants and . The Brauer class determines its division representative uniquely, so there areisomorphism classes, where is the Euler totient function. This includes the single degree-one algebra .