Abelian extension

In abstract algebra, an abelian extension is

a Galois extension whose Galois group is
abelian. When the Galois group is also
cyclic, the extension is also called a cyclic
extension. Going in the other direction, a
Galois extension is called solvable if its
Galois group is solvable, i.e., if the group
can be decomposed into a series of
normal extensions of an abelian group.
Every finite extension of a finite field is a
cyclic extension.

Class field theory provides detailed

information about the abelian extensions
of number fields, function fields of
algebraic curves over finite fields, and local
fields.

There are two slightly different definitions

of the term cyclotomic extension. It can
mean either an extension formed by
adjoining roots of unity to a field, or a
subextension of such an extension. The
cyclotomic fields are examples. A
cyclotomic extension, under either
definition, is always abelian.

If a field K contains a primitive n-th root of

unity and the n-th root of an element of K
is adjoined, the resulting Kummer
extension is an abelian extension (if K has
characteristic p we should say that p
doesn't divide n, since otherwise this can
fail even to be a separable extension). In
general, however, the Galois groups of n-th
roots of elements operate both on the n-th
roots and on the roots of unity, giving a
non-abelian Galois group as semi-direct
product. The Kummer theory gives a
complete description of the abelian
extension case, and the Kronecker–Weber
theorem tells us that if K is the field of
rational numbers, an extension is abelian if
and only if it is a subfield of a field
obtained by adjoining a root of unity.

There is an important analogy with the

fundamental group in topology, which
classifies all covering spaces of a space:
abelian covers are classified by its
abelianisation which relates directly to the
first homology group.

References
Kuz'min, L.V. (2001) [1994], "cyclotomic
extension" , in Hazewinkel, Michiel,
 Encyclopedia of Mathematics, Springer
Science+Business Media B.V. / Kluwer
Academic Publishers, ISBN 978-1-
55608-010-4

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