# Effective Chebotarev density results for arbitrary number fields

So let $f(x)\in\mathbf{Z}[x]$ be a monic polynomial of degree $d$ and let $K$ be the splitting field of $f$. Let us define the "heigt of $f$" $:=||f||$ to be the maximum of the abolute values of the coefficients of $f$. (Instead of the height it might be better to work with the abolute value of the discriminant of $K$).

Let us denote the Galois group of $f$ over $\mathbf{Q}$ by $G$. For each prime number for which the roots of $f$ modulo $p$ are distinct we denote by $G_p$ the Galois group of $f\pmod{p}$. A cute result that may be found for example in Van der Waerden first algebra book says that there exists an (non-canonical but well defined up to conjugation in $G$) injection of $G_p$ in $G$. By elementary group theory, if we take the group generated by a set of representatives of the conjugacy classes of $G$ then it generates $G$. Thus by Chebotarev density theorem, we know that there exists a finite set of prime numbers $S$ of $\mathbf{Q}$ such that $$G_S:=\langle G_p| p\in S\rangle=G.$$ In particular, we may always choose a set $S$ with $G_S=G$ and $|S|\leq r$ where $r$ is the number of conjugacy classes of $G$.

Q: So let $S_x$ be the set of all prime numbers less than $x$. Is it possible to find explicitly a lower bound for $x$ in terms $||f||$ (or $|disc(K)|$) and $d$ such that $$G_{S_x}=G?$$

added: So basically, I'm just asking for an effective version of the Chebotarev density theorem for the splitting field of $f$, this is probably well known to the expert. So probably one should consider $|disc(K)|$ rather than $||f||$ which can be arbitrary large for a fixed $K$ (even though $f$ may have bad reduction for many primes $p$ which do not divide $|disc(K)|$)

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I removed some of the tags which seemed unnecessary to me. –  Yemon Choi Jun 29 '11 at 1:02
–  Qiaochu Yuan Jun 29 '11 at 1:07
Five. One to hold the light bulb, four to turn the ladder.  I was able to hold off for an hour from posting this, but sometimes one must give in to temptation. –  Will Jagy Jun 29 '11 at 2:05
Hi @Will, well my Q1 was kind of stupid. I realized it. If you take one representative in $G$ for every conjugacy class then it generates $G$, so this gives some easy lower bound. In any case, thanks for your comment. –  Hugo Chapdelaine Jun 29 '11 at 2:57
I am about as far from being an expert as is possible. So please excuse what might be a trivial comment. But it seems that if for each prime you only know that there exists a non-canonical injection $G_p \to G$, then even knowing a bunch of $G_p$s by no means is enough to determine the group $G$. Ok, fine, but it's worse: it seems perfectly possible that depending on the choice of injections $G_p \to G$, the set of necessary $p$s can vary vastly. Now, maybe there's more structure that I'm not aware of? –  Theo Johnson-Freyd Jun 29 '11 at 3:06