The p-adic numbers Holly Green∗ 24th September 2018 Abstract This paper is the final product from my place on Imperial College's UROP programme. It provides an introduction to the p-adic numbers and their applications, based loosely on Gouv^ea's \p-adic numbers", [1]. We begin by discussing how they arise in mathem- atics, in particular emphasizing that they are both analytic and algebraic in nature. Proceeding, we explore some of the peculiar results accompanying these numbers before stating and proving Hensel's lemma, which concerns the solvability of p-adic polyno- mials. Specifically, we draw upon how Hensel's lemma allows us to determine the existence of rational solutions to a homogenous polynomial of degree 2 in 3 variables. We conclude with a thorough analysis of the p-adic aspects of the Bernoulli numbers. Contents 1 Introduction 2 1.1 An analytic approach . .2 1.2 An algebraic approach . .9 1.3 The correspondence . 10 2 Discrete valuation rings and fields 15 2.1 Localizations . 16 3 Solving polynomials in Zp 22 3.1 Hensel's lemma . 22 3.2 Local and global . 28 4 Analysis in Qp and its applications 35 4.1 Series . 35 4.2 The Bernoulli numbers and p-adic analyticity . 41 ∗Department of Mathematics, Imperial College London, London, SW7 6AZ, United King- dom. E-mail address:
[email protected] 1 1 Introduction The p-adic numbers are most simply a field extension of Q, the rational numbers, which can be formulated in two ways, using either analytic or algebraic methods.