Journal of Algebra 554 (2020) 78–105 Contents lists available at ScienceDirect Journal of Algebra www.elsevier.com/locate/jalgebra Cohomology groups of Fermat curves via ray class fields of cyclotomic fields Rachel Davis a, Rachel Pries b,∗ a University of Wisconsin-Madison, United States of America b Colorado State University, United States of America a r t i c l e i n f o a b s t r a c t Article history: The absolute Galois group of the cyclotomic field K = Q(ζp) Received 31 July 2018 acts on the étale homology of the Fermat curve X of exponent Available online 1 April 2020 p. We study a Galois cohomology group which is valuable Communicated by Kirsten for measuring an obstruction for K-rational points on X. Eisentraeger We analyze a 2-nilpotent extension of K which contains MSC: the information needed for measuring this obstruction. We primary 11D41, 11R18, 11R34, determine a large subquotient of this Galois cohomology 11R37, 11Y40 group which arises from Heisenberg extensions of K. For secondary 13A50, 14F20, 20D15, p =3, we perform a Magma computation with ray class fields, 20J06, 55S35 group cohomology, and Galois cohomology which determines it completely. Keywords: © 2020 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved. Cyclotomic field Class field theory Ray class field Absolute Galois group Heisenberg group Fermat curve Homology Galois cohomology Obstruction Transgression * Corresponding author. E-mail addresses:
[email protected] (R. Davis),
[email protected] (R. Pries). https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jalgebra.2020.02.030 0021-8693/© 2020 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.