Sean Li Cornell Math 7370 Notes Spring 2013 Algebraic Number Theory Lecture 1 1/21/13 Professor: Shankar Sen

en 505 Malott. History: Theory of Equations (groups Galois, Lagrange) and Number Theory (rings, ideals Kummer, Dedekind) led to Modern Algebra. Kummer: Z[p ] in general does not have unique factorization. Classical algebraic number theory based on ideals. Later approach based on (discrete) valuations. p-adic numbers. Completions of Z, Q, denoted Zp , Qp , which is analogous to R (though R is Archimedean and Qp is not Archimedean). Denition. The p-adic absolute value | |p , where p is a xed prime. Let a, b Z and x Q such that x = a/b. Then a = p Ordp (x) |x|p = b p where Ordp (x) is the highest power of p that divides x. We also have Ordp (x) = Ordp (a) Ordp (b). Note that Ord(0) can be thought of as innite as every power of p divides 0. Hence |0|p = 0. This also satises |xy|p = |x|p |y|p and |x + y|p max{|x|p , |y|p }. If |x|p = |y|p then equality holds. The p-adic metric is dened by dp (x, y) = |x y|p . Theorem (Hasse Minkowski). A homogeneous quadratic form equation f = 0 over Q has a nonzero solution in Q if and only if it has a nonzero solution in Qp for all primes p as well as in R. A classical set of questions. When can a number be written as a sum of two squares, n = a2 + b2 ? Gauss: Gaussian integers, a2 + b2 = (a + bi)(a bi). It was important to look

rst at the case n = p. p = a2 + b 2 . Ex. 5, 13, 17, 29, . . . . Possible if and only if p 1 (mod 4). p = a2 + 2b2 . Ex. 3, 11, 17, 19, . . . . Possible if and only if p 1, 3 (mod 8). p = a2 + 3b2 . Ex. 7, 13, 19, 31, . . . . Possible if and only if p 1 (mod 3). p = a2 + 5b2 . Ex. 29, 41, 61, 89, . . . . Possible if and only if p 1, 9 (mod 20). Non-unique factorization. Note that in the cases with b2 , 2b2 , 3b2 the solutions run through half the plausible residue classes, but for 5b2 they run through only a quarter. This is related to the non-unique factorization for Z[ 5] (e.g. 6 = (2)(3) = (1 5)(1 + 5)). Also related to the Dirichlet class number.

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