Introduction to Class Field Theory and Primes of the Form X + Ny
Introduction to Class Field Theory and Primes of the Form x2 + ny2 Che Li October 3, 2018 Abstract This paper introduces the basic theorems of class field theory, based on an exposition of some fundamental ideas in algebraic number theory (prime decomposition of ideals, ramification theory, Hilbert class field, and generalized ideal class group), to answer the question of which primes can be expressed in the form x2 + ny2 for integers x and y, for a given n. Contents 1 Number Fields1 1.1 Prime Decomposition of Ideals..........................1 1.2 Basic Ramification Theory.............................3 2 Quadratic Fields6 3 Class Field Theory7 3.1 Hilbert Class Field.................................7 3.2 p = x2 + ny2 for infinitely n’s (1)........................8 3.3 Example: p = x2 + 5y2 .............................. 11 3.4 Orders in Imaginary Quadratic Fields...................... 13 3.5 Theorems of Class Field Theory.......................... 16 3.6 p = x2 + ny2 for infinitely many n’s (2)..................... 18 3.7 Example: p = x2 + 27y2 .............................. 20 1 Number Fields 1.1 Prime Decomposition of Ideals We will review some basic facts from algebraic number theory, including Dedekind Domain, unique factorization of ideals, and ramification theory. To begin, we define an algebraic number field (or, simply, a number field) to be a finite field extension K of Q. The set of algebraic integers in K form a ring OK , which we call the ring of integers, i.e., OK is the set of all α 2 K which are roots of a monic integer polynomial. In general, OK is not a UFD but a Dedekind domain.
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