Galois Theory on the Line in Nonzero Characteristic
BULLETIN (New Series) OF THE AMERICANMATHEMATICAL SOCIETY Volume 27, Number I, July 1992 GALOIS THEORY ON THE LINE IN NONZERO CHARACTERISTIC SHREERAM S. ABHYANKAR Dedicated to Walter Feit, J-P. Serre, and e-mail 1. What is Galois theory? Originally, the equation Y2 + 1 = 0 had no solution. Then the two solutions i and —i were created. But there is absolutely no way to tell who is / and who is —i.' That is Galois Theory. Thus, Galois Theory tells you how far we cannot distinguish between the roots of an equation. This is codified in the Galois Group. 2. Galois groups More precisely, consider an equation Yn + axY"-x +... + an=0 and let ai , ... , a„ be its roots, which are assumed to be distinct. By definition, the Galois Group G of this equation consists of those permutations of the roots which preserve all relations between them. Equivalently, G is the set of all those permutations a of the symbols {1,2,...,«} such that (t>(aa^, ... , a.a(n)) = 0 for every «-variable polynomial (j>for which (j>(a\, ... , an) — 0. The co- efficients of <f>are supposed to be in a field K which contains the coefficients a\, ... ,an of the given polynomial f = f(Y) = Y" + alY"-l+--- + an. We call G the Galois Group of / over K and denote it by Galy(/, K) or Gal(/, K). This is Galois' original concrete definition. According to the modern abstract definition, the Galois Group of a normal extension L of a field K is defined to be the group of all AT-automorphisms of L and is denoted by Gal(L, K).
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