Paper 3, Section II, H

Galois Theory
Part II, 2010

Let KK be a field of characteristic 0 . It is known that soluble extensions of KK are contained in a succession of cyclotomic and Kummer extensions. We will refine this statement.

Let nn be a positive integer. The nn-th cyclotomic field over a field KK is denoted by K(μn)K\left(\boldsymbol{\mu}_{n}\right). Let ζn\zeta_{n} be a primitive nn-th root of unity in K(μn)K\left(\boldsymbol{\mu}_{n}\right).

(i) Write ζ3Q(μ3),ζ5Q(μ5)\zeta_{3} \in \mathbb{Q}\left(\boldsymbol{\mu}_{3}\right), \zeta_{5} \in \mathbb{Q}\left(\boldsymbol{\mu}_{5}\right) in terms of radicals. Write Q(μ3)/Q\mathbb{Q}\left(\boldsymbol{\mu}_{3}\right) / \mathbb{Q} and Q(μ5)/Q\mathbb{Q}\left(\boldsymbol{\mu}_{5}\right) / \mathbb{Q} as a succession of Kummer extensions.

(ii) Let n>1n>1, and F:=K(ζ1,ζ2,,ζn1)F:=K\left(\zeta_{1}, \zeta_{2}, \ldots, \zeta_{n-1}\right). Show that F(μn)/FF\left(\boldsymbol{\mu}_{n}\right) / F can be written as a succession of Kummer extensions, using the structure theorem of finite abelian groups (in other words, roots of unity can be written in terms of radicals). Show that every soluble extension of KK is contained in a succession of Kummer extensions.