Past exam of the mathematics course of the University of Cambridge 2009 iii Paper 26 3 Solution Created 2026-10-03 Updated 2026-10-14
Here a formal group law means a one-dimensional commutative law with , , and . It has leading part and a recursively determined formal inverse . A homomorphism satisfies . It is an isomorphism precisely when its linear coefficient is a unit of : necessity follows by composing with an inverse, while sufficiency follows by recursive inversion of the series and then the homomorphism identity. Over a field the condition is .
The characteristic-zero classification is that every such law over has a unique isomorphism to the formal additive group with linear coefficient one. This is its formal logarithm. To prove it, put , whose constant term is one, and defineIntegration is coefficientwise, which is possible over the characteristic-zero field. Differentiate associativity with respect to at zero to obtainIt follows that . The difference is therefore independent of ; evaluating at givesIts linear coefficient one makes it invertible as a formal series. Conversely, a homomorphism from to the additive law with derivative satisfies , by differentiating its defining identity at the second variable zero. Thus . In particular the normalized logarithm is unique, and every homomorphism between two laws over is , with an isomorphism exactly when . This is a formal classification; analytic convergence is a separate issue.
Now suppose is defined over . Write , and let the residue field have size . Since and its reciprocal have integral coefficients, writing gives the valuation bound for coefficients of an integral formal logarithmTherefore the logarithm converges on , as tends to infinity. Choose an integer and put . For , factoring givesThe last inequality uses , since . It follows that maps this ball into and is strictly contracting, gaining at least one unit of valuation in differences.
For any , iterate from . The iterates remain in the ball, their differences gain valuation at each step, and completeness gives a limit solving . The same difference estimate makes this solution unique. Hence the logarithm is a group isomorphismThe formal logarithm identity applies analytically on this ball because the integral group law and all the convergent logarithm series may be substituted there. Finally reduction of the formal parameter modulo is a group homomorphism from onto the finite group on , with kernel . Its index is . Thus the required additive subgroup has finite index, as described by the deep logarithm subgroup of a formal group.