Galois Groups of Trinomials
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Journal of Algebra 222, 561–573 (1999) Article ID jabr.1999.8033, available online at http://www.idealibrary.com on Galois Groups of Trinomials S. D. Cohen Department of Mathematics, University of Glasgow, Glasgow G12 8QW, Scotland E-mail: [email protected] View metadata, citation and similar papers at core.ac.uk brought to you by CORE and provided by Elsevier - Publisher Connector A. Movahhedi and A. Salinier URA 1586 CNRS, Facult´e des Sciences, 123 Avenue Albert Thomas, 87060 Limoges Cedex, France Communicated by Walter Feit Received May 7, 1999 Galois groups of irreducible trinomials Xn C aXs C b 2 X are investigated assuming the classification of finite simple groups. We show that under some simple yet general hypotheses bearing on the integers n; s; a and b only very specific groups can occur. For instance, if the two integers nb and asn − s are coprime and if s is a prime number, then already the Galois group of f X is either the alternating group An or the symmetric group Sn. This significantly extends work of Osada. © 1999 Academic Press 1. INTRODUCTION Let f X=Xn C aXs C b be an irreducible trinomial with integral coef- ficients, where n and s are co-prime. Although, of course, we know that, in a sense, almost all such trinomials must have the symmetric group Sn as Ga- lois group, it is valuable to identify simple and explicit, yet general, criteria on the coefficients a, b under which this is the case. Examples of such cri- teria occur in the work of Osada [11, 12]: we greatly extend these to cover situations which, by any reckoning, are more delicate (because non-tame ramification is involved). Thus, whereas in a preceding paper [3], we estab- lished the double transitivity of the Galois group of f X over under 561 0021-8693/99 $30.00 Copyright © 1999 by Academic Press All rights of reproduction in any form reserved. 562 cohen, movahhedi, and salinier some general circumstances, now we use the classification of finite simple groups and other special considerations to specify in most cases which dou- bly transitive groups are liable to be realized in this way; there are very few possibilities. Indeed, as we remarked in [3], generally not many trinomials for which the alternating group An 6⊆ Gf are known; perhaps the results of the paper may help to confine the search for such examples to a smaller area. Denote by α xD α1;α2;:::;αn the different roots of f X in an algebraic closure of .LetK xD α be the field obtained by adjoining the root α to the field , and L xD α,α2, :::,αn be the normal closure of K over . We consider the Galois group G of L over as a transitive group of permutations of the roots of f X. For a prime p, vpb denotes the p-adic valuation of an integer b, i.e., the largest integer k ≥ 0 such that pk divides b. The first result extends Theorem 1.1 of [3]. Theorem 1.1. Let f X=Xn C aXs C b be an irreducible trinomial with integral coefficients, where n; as=an − s;b=1. Suppose there exists a prime divisor p of b such that s; vpb D 1. Suppose the Galois group G of f X over does not contain the alternating group An. Then s>n=2. Indeed, if s 6D n − 1, the following hold. (1) If n=2 <s<n− 2, we must have n =qd − 1=q − 1 ;sD qd − qe=q − 1, where q is an odd prime power, d is an even integer, e an integer coprime to d with 2 <e<d, the prime p is a divisor of s and PSLd; q⊆G ⊆ P0Ld; q: (2) If s D n − 2, only the following two possibilities can occur. (2a) There is an odd integer m such that n D 2m C 1 and G D P0L2; 2m. (2b) n D 11, p D 3 and G is the Mathieu group M11. Under the conditions of Theorem 1.1, the double transitivity of G was established in Theorem 1.1 of [3]. Of course, doubly transitive groups have been classified, but the significance of Theorem 1.1 is that, provided s< n − 1, most of these groups cannot arise. When s D n − 1 no progress is made in this paper on the resolution of the problem of which doubly transitive groups may occur. In the case in which additionally b; s=1, the following consequence of Theorem 1.1 is an improvement (in a sense, a completion) of [12, Theo- rem 1] by the omission of any condition on the discriminant of f X in its statement. galois groups of trinomials 563 Theorem 1.2. Let f X=Xn C aXs C b be an irreducible trinomial with integral coefficients, where s 6D n − 1 and nb; asn − s D 1: Then the Galois group G of f X over contains the alternating group An in each of the following two cases. (i) There exists a prime divisor p of b such that s; vpb D 1; (ii) s is a prime number. Of course, under the conditions of Theorem 1.2, G D An if and only if the discriminant of f X is a square. A further result extends Theorem 1.2 of [3]. Theorem 1.3. Let f X=Xn C aXs C b be an irreducible trinomial with integral coefficients, where s>1 and n; s=1. Suppose that there exists a prime divisor p of b, but not of a, such that (i) n D s C pt ;t>0, (ii) vpf −a D 1, (iii) s; vpb D 1. Suppose also that the Galois group G of f X over does not contain the alternating group An. Then only the following possibilities can occur. 1. s D 2, t D 1, n D p C 2, where p D 2m − 1 is a Mersenne prime, and the Galois group G is either PGL2; 2m or P0L2; 2m. 2. s D 2, n D 11, p D 3 and the Galois group G is the Mathieu group M11. 3. s D 3, n D 11, p D 2 and the Galois group G is the Mathieu group M11. 4. s D 1 C q C···Cqd−2, n D 1 C q C···Cqd−1, and the Galois group G lies between PSLd; q and P0Ld; q, where (4a) q D 2 and d D 3 or 4,ifp D 2; (4b) q D pr and d is an even integer ≥ 4,ifp is odd. We stress that the validity of Theorem 1.3 has (deliberately) been stated under rather general conditions. For instance, it is not supposed that a and nb are coprime. We are aware that, by relaxing these conditions in various ways, some of the possibilities allowed by the theorem may be discounted. For example, if a and b are assumed to be coprime, then we know that the possibilities described in (4a) (namely, with p D q D 2 and d D 3or 4) cannot arise. Whether any of the possibilities (1), (2a), (2b) of Theorem 1.1 and (1)–(4) of Theorem 1.3 can be realized by rational trinomials is an open question about which we lack evidence either way. 564 cohen, movahhedi, and salinier 2. SOME FACTS FROM GROUP THEORY Here we gather some facts on permutation groups that we shall use re- peatedly in the subsequent sections. 2.1. Jordan Groups Let G be a primitive permutation group of degree n acting on a set X. For 1 <r<n− 1, we say that G is an n; r-Jordan group if the following conditions hold: (1) G is not r C 1-fold transitive; (2) there exists a subset Y (“a Jordan complement”) of X of car- dinality r whose pointwise stabilizer acts transitively on the set X n Y of remaining points. Jordan groups have been classified [10, p. 276](see also [4, Section 7.4]). They are divided into three categories. First there are the affine groups, which are qd;qe-Jordan groups, where q is a prime power and d and e are integers such that d>e>0. The second category comprises the groups G acting on a projective space PGd−1q of dimension d − 1 over the field q (with q a prime power and d ≥ 3) such that PSLd; q⊆ G ⊆ P0Ld; q: they are qd − 1=q − 1; qe − 1=q − 1-Jordan groups for 1 <e<d. Finally, there are exceptional Jordan groups for n; r in 15; 3; 16; 4; 22; 6; 23; 7; 24; 8. In particular, the exceptional 23; 7-Jordan group is the Mathieu group M23. When n and r are coprime, the only n; r-Jordan groups are the Mathieu d group M23 and the projective groups. It is not hard to see that q − 1=q − 1 and qe − 1=q − 1 are coprime if and only if d and e are coprime. Accordingly, we have the following proposition. Proposition 2.1. Let G be an n; r-Jordan group with n and r coprime. Then one of the following holds. 1. There are two coprime integers d and e with 1 <e<dand a prime power q such that n =qd − 1=q − 1, r =qe − 1=q − 1, and PSLd; q⊆G ⊆ P0Ld; q. 2. n D 23;r D 7 and G D M23.