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p-adic number
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
In mathematics, the
 p
-adic number systems
were first described by Kurt Hensel in 1897
[1]
. For each prime number
 p
, the
 p
-adicnumber system extends the ordinary arithmetic of the rational numbers in a way different from the extension of the rationalnumber system to the real and complex number systems. The main use of these other systems is in number theory.The extension is achieved by an alternative interpretation of the concept of absolute value. The
 p
-adic numbers were motivatedprimarily by an attempt to bring the ideas and techniques of power series methods into number theory. Their influence nowextends far beyond this. For example, the field of 
 p
-adic analysis essentially provides an alternative form of calculus.More formally, for a given prime
 p
, the field
Q
 p
of 
 p
-adic numbers is a completion of the rational numbers. The field
Q
 p
is alsogiven a topology derived from a metric, which is itself derived from an alternative valuation on the rational numbers. This metricspace is complete in the sense that every Cauchy sequence converges. This is what allows the development of calculus on
Q
 p
,and it is the interaction of this analytic and algebraic structure which gives the
 p
-adic number systems their power and utility.The
 p
in
 p
-adic is a
dummy variable.
Advanced articles in number theory often speak of the
l
-adic numbers without explanation.The
l
-adic numbers are the same thing as the
 p
-adic numbers; the
l
is used to not conflict with other uses of 
 p
.
IntroductionContents
1 Introduction
2 p-adic expansions
3 Notation
4 Constructions
4.1 Analytic approach
4.2 Algebraic approach
5 Properties
6 Rational arithmetic
7 Generalizations and related concepts
8 Local-global principle
9 See also
10 References
11 Notes
12 External links
This section is an informal introduction to p-adic numbers, using examples from the ring of 10-adic numbers. More formalconstructions and properties are given below.
 In the standard decimal representation, many (in fact, most
[2]
) real numbers do not have a terminating decimal expansion. Forexample, 1/3 is represented as a non-terminating decimal as followsInformally, most people are comfortable with non-terminating decimals because it is clear that a real number can beapproximated to any required degree of closeness by a terminating decimal that uses enough decimal places. If two decimalexpansions differ only after the 10th decimal place they are quite close to one another, and if they differ only after the 20thdecimal place they are even closer.10-adic numbers use a similar non-terminating expansion, but with a different concept of "closeness" (which mathematicians calla metric). Whereas two decimal expansions are close to one another if they differ by a large negative power of 10, two 10-adicexpansions are close if they differ by a large positive power of 10. Thus 3333 and 4333 are close in the 10-adic metric, and33333333 and 43333333 are even closer.In the 10-adic metric, the following sequence of numbers gets closer and closer to
−
1
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 support Wikipedia
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Page 1 of 7p-adic number - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia03/10/2008http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/P-adic_number
 
9 =
−
1 + 1099 =
−
1 + 10
2
 999 =
−
1 + 10
3
 9999 =
−
1 + 10
4
 and taking this sequence to its limit, we can say (informally) that the 10-adic expansion of 
−
1 isIn this notation, 10-adic expansions can be extended indefinitely to the left, in contrast to decimal expansions, which can beextended indefinitely to the right. Note that this is not the only way to write
 p
-adic numbers—for alternatives see the
 Notation
 section below.More formally, a 10-adic number can be defined aswhere each of the
a
i
is a digit taken from the set {0, 1, …..., 9} and the initial index
n
may be positive, negative or 0, but must befinite. From this definition, it is clear that positive integers and positive rational numbers with terminating decimal expansionswill have terminating 10-adic expansions that are identical to their decimal expansions. Other numbers may have non-terminating 10-adic expansions.It is possible to define addition, subtraction, and multiplication on 10-adic numbers in a consistent way, so that the 10-adicnumbers form a commutative ring. We can create 10-adic expansions for negative numbers as followsand fractions which have non-terminating decimal expansions also have non-terminating 10-adic expansions. For exampleGeneralizing the last example, we can find a 10-adic expansion for any rational number
 p
  ⁄  
q
such that
q
is co-prime to 10; Euler'stheorem guarantees that if 
q
is co-prime to 10, then there is an
n
such that 10
n
−
1 is a multiple of 
q
. However, 10-adic numbers have one major drawback. It is possible to find pairs of non-zero 10-adic numbers whose product is0. In other words, the 10-adic numbers are not a domain because they contain zero divisors. This turns out to be because 10 is acomposite number. Fortunately, this problem can be avoided by using a prime number
 p
as the base of the number system insteadof 10.
p-adic expansions
If 
 p
is a fixed prime number, then any positive integer can be written in a base p expansion in the form
Page 2 of 7p-adic number - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia03/10/2008http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/P-adic_number
 
where the a
i
are integers in {0, …,
 p
−
1}. For example, the binary expansion of 35 is 1·2
5
+ 0·2
4
+ 0·2
3
+ 0·2
2
+ 1·2
1
+ 1·2
0
,often written in the shorthand notation 100011
2
.The familiar approach to generalizing this description to the larger domain of the rationals (and, ultimately, to the reals) is toinclude sums of the form:A definite meaning is given to these sums based on Cauchy sequences, using the absolute value as metric. Thus, for example, 1/3can be expressed in base 5 as the limit of the sequence 0.1313131313...
5
. In this formulation, the integers are precisely thosenumbers which can be represented in the form where
a
i
= 0 for all
i
< 0.As an alternative, if we extend the base p expansions by allowing infinite sums of the formwhere
k 
is some (not necessarily positive) integer, we obtain the
 p
-adic expansions defining the field
Q
 p
of 
 p
-adic numbers
.Those
 p
-adic numbers for which
a
i
= 0 for all
i
< 0 are also called the
 p
-adic integers
. The
 p
-adic integers form a subring of 
Q
 p
,denoted
Z
 p
. (Note:
Z
 p
is often used to represent the ring of integers modulo
 p
. If each ring is needed, the latter is usually written
Z
 / 
 p
Z
or
Z
 / 
(p)
. Be sure to check the notation for any text you read.)Intuitively, as opposed to
 p
-adic expansions which extend to the
right 
as sums of ever smaller, increasingly negative powers of the base
 p
(as is done for the real numbers as described above), these are numbers whose
 p
-adic expansion to the
left 
are allowedto go on forever. For example, the
 p
-adic expansion of 1/3 in base 5 is …1313132, i.e. the limit of the sequence 2, 32, 132, 3132,13132, 313132, 1313132,… . Multiplying this infinite sum by 3 in base 5 gives …0000001. As there are no negative powers of 5in this expansion of 1/3 (i.e. no numbers to the right of the decimal point), we see that 1/3 is a
 p
-adic integer in base 5.While it is possible to use this approach to rigorously define p-adic numbers and explore their properties, just as in the case of real numbers other approaches are generally preferred. Hence we want to define a notion of infinite sum which makes theseexpressions meaningful, and this is most easily accomplished by the introduction of the
 p
-adic metric. Two different butequivalent solutions to this problem are presented in the
Constructions
section below.
Notation
There are several different conventions for writing
 p
-adic expansions. So far this article has used a notation for
 p
-adic expansionsin which powers of 
 p
increase from right to left. With this right-to-left notation the 3-adic expansion of 
1
 / 
5
, for example, iswritten asWhen performing arithmetic in this notation, digits are carried to the left. It is also possible to write
 p
-adic expansions so that thepowers of 
 p
increase from left to right, and digits are carried to the right. With this left-to-right notation the 3-adic expansion of 
1
 / 
5
is -adic expansions may be written with other sets of digits instead of {0, 1, …,
 p
−
1}. For example, the 3-adic expansion of 
1
 / 
5
 can be written using balanced ternary digits {1,0,1} as
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