Properties of Number Fields
Kosma Kasprzak
Objectives
▶ Introduce algebraic number theory
▶ Present commonly used methods
▶ Show an application in number theory
Introduction
▶ Algebraic number theory is essentially the study of number fields, which are
the finite extensions of the field Q of rational numbers. Such fields can be
useful in solving problems which at first appear to involve only rational
numbers. Number-theoretic questions are expressed in terms of properties
of algebraic objects such as algebraic number fields and their rings of
integers, finite fields, and function fields. These properties, such as whether
a ring admits unique factorization, the behavior of ideals, and the Galois
groups of fields, can resolve questions of primary importance in number
theory, like the existence of solutions to Diophantine equations.
Preliminaries
▶ We say that a complex number is algebraic, if it’s a root of a polynomial
with rational coefficients. If additionally we can make the polynomial monic
and all the coefficients integer, we call the number an algebraic integer, and
the set of all such numbers A. One can show that A is a ring.
▶ A number field K is any finite-degree extension of Q. Since C is
algebraically closed, we can always embed K into C; therefore we mainly
consider K which are subsets of Q.
▶ The ring K ∩ A is called the number ring of K , and denoted by OK .
Dedekind domains
▶ In studying number fields we very frequently make use of properties of
Dedekind domains:
Definition
A Dedekind domain R is an integral domain such that satisfies the
following conditions:
▷ Every ideal is finitely generated
▷ Every nonzero prime ideal is a maximal ideal
▷ The ring R is integrally closed in its field of fractions
K = {α/β : α, β ∈ R, β = 0}.
This means that if α/β is a root of a monic polynomial with coefficients in
R, then β|α in R.
In particular, it’s quite easy to see that all number rings are actually
Dedekind domains.
▶ We focus on these kinds of rings mainly because of the following property:
Theorem
Every ideal in a Dedekind domain is uniquely represented as a product of
prime ideals.
This allows us to talk about the decomposition of ideals and often prove
statement in a similar way, as proving statements about integers using
unique factorization.
Another very important aspect of working with Dedekind domains is:
Theorem (Class groups)
Let us say I ∼ J for two ideals of R if there exist elements α, β of R
such that αI = βJ. Then ∼ is an equivalence relation, and classes of
ideals with the ideal multiplication from a finite abelian group called the
class group of K .
Jagiellonian University
Prime ideals
▶ Because of the unique decomposition into prime ideals, it is important to be
able to determine what they look like in a given number ring.
▶ For every prime ideal P of R we can consider its intersection with Z – it
has to the set of all multiples of some prime p ∈ Z. Then we actually get
that P is a factor in the decomposition of the ideal (p)., and call it a prime
lying above p.
▶ An important question is how to determine the prime factorization of a
given ideal (p) for prime p ∈ Z. Here the following theorem proves to be
very useful.
Theorem (Kummer-Dedekind)
If for some element α ∈ R the abelian group Z[α] has index nondivisible
by p in OK (in particular, if α generates OK ), and the minimal
polynomial f of α splits modulo p as g1g2 . . . gk into irreducibles, then
the unique factorization of (p) into prime ideals is
(p) = (p, g1(α)) · . . . · (p, gk (α)).
Computing the class group
▶ Using some more advanced algebraic and geometric techniques we can
associate to each field K a constant N, such that the class group is
generated by classes of prime ideals lying over primes smaller than N.
▶ Applying Kummer-Dedekind’s Theorem we can find the exact form of these
finitely many prime ideals.
▶ Then we have to find out which of these finitely many ideals lie in the same
equivalence class, and what group relations the classes satisfy. This turns
out to be quite difficult and involved, but usually possible to compute.
▶ Now the ideals and relations between them give us the class group.
Example of usage in Dipohantine equations
To show the power of such methods, we sketch a method to find all integer
solutions to y 2 = x 3 − 13. √
3
▶ Find the class group of Q( 13) – it turns out to be isomorphic to Z3 .
√3
▶ See that the ideal (x − 13) is a factor of (y 2) and is coprime with the
other factors, so must itself be a square of an ideal I .
▶ Since the square of the ideal I is principal, the ideal itself must be principal,
otherwise I would have √ order 2 in the class group.
▶ 3
This shows that x − 13 is a product of a square and a unit.
▶ Find the form of units in R, for example using Dirichlet’s Unit Theorem, in
n
this case telling us that all units
√ in R are of the form ±u for some unit u.
3
▶ Manually check when x − 13 can be a product of a square and a unit.
References
[1] D.A.Marcus.
Number Fields.
Springer, 2th edition, 2018.
Acknowledgments
▶ I would like to thank the organizers for allowing me the opportunity to
present this poster.
Contact Information
▶ Email: kosma.kasprzak@wp.pl
▶ Phone: +48 173 274 584