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Questions tagged [galois-theory]

Galois theory, named after Évariste Galois, provides a connection between field theory and group theory. Using Galois theory, certain problems in field theory can be reduced to group theory, which is, in some sense, simpler and better understood.

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Grothendieck-Teichmüller conjecture

(1) In "Esquisse d'un programme", Grothendieck conjectures Grothendieck-Teichmüller conjecture: the morphism $$ G_{\mathbb{Q}} \longrightarrow Aut(\widehat{T}) $$ is an isomorphism. Here $...
AFK's user avatar
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30 votes
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What do dessins tell us about the absolute Galois group?

I have sometimes seen it asserted that one manifestiation of how complicated the absolute Galois group $\mathrm{Gal}(\overline{\mathbf{Q}}/\mathbf{Q})$ is is that one can not "pin down" any single ...
Dan Petersen's user avatar
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28 votes
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907 views

On certain representations of algebraic numbers in terms of trigonometric functions

Let's say that a real number has a simple trigonometric representation, if it can be represented as a product of zero or more rational powers of positive integers and zero or more (positive or ...
Vladimir Reshetnikov's user avatar
20 votes
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1k views

Could unramified Galois groups satisfy a version of property tau?

This is an experiment: there is a question I want to mention in an article I'm writing, and I am not sure it's a sensible question, so I will ask it here first, in the hopes that if it's insensible ...
JSE's user avatar
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17 votes
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750 views

Elements of finite fields with many powers of trace zero

Let $p$ be an odd prime number, $n>1$ be an integer, and $\mathrm{tr}$ be the trace map of the field extension $\mathrm{GF}(p^{2n})/\mathrm{GF}(p)$. For which pair $(p,n)$ does there exists $x\in\...
Binzhou Xia's user avatar
16 votes
0 answers
531 views

Aligned roots of irreducible polynomials

It is well known from this famous question that the roots of a random polynomial tend to be close to the unit circle. So I was wondering in a somewhat converse sense: for an irreducible polynomial, is ...
Wolfgang's user avatar
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Galois theory timeline (II)

This question is a sequel. I structured the previous one around Emil Artin's classic treatment of Galois theory from the 1940s, though making clear some reservations of my own about whether Artin ...
Charles Matthews's user avatar
15 votes
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458 views

Is the absolute Galois group of the rationals Hopfian?

Is every continuous epimorphism from the absolute Galois group of $\mathbb{Q}$ to itself injective?
Pablo's user avatar
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15 votes
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866 views

On quintic roots $x_1^{1/5}+x_2^{1/5}+\dots+x_5^{1/5}$

(Major revision to incorporate new results in this MO cubic version.) Note: All coefficients are in the rationals. I. Cubic In the linked post, it was shown that given a general cubic (via its ...
Tito Piezas III's user avatar
14 votes
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Is there an infinite field of characteristic 2 whose multiplicative group is torsion free and (direct-sum) indecomposable?

Let $F$ be a infinite field of characteristic 2 whose multiplicative group $F^*$ is torsion free. I would like to conclude that $F^*$ is decomposable or find an example where $F^*$ is indecomposable. ...
Chebolu's user avatar
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What was the "stormy discussion" about differential Galois theory at IHES?

In Kazuo Okamoto and Yousuke Ohyama's paper "Mathematical works of Hiroshi Umemura", Annales de la faculté des sciences de Toulouse Mathématiques, XXIX, no. 5 (2020) pp. 1053-1062, there is ...
Phil Harmsworth's user avatar
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On Ramanujan's pi formula $\frac 1\pi=\sum_{k=0}^\infty\frac {(4k)!}{k!^4}\frac {Ak+B}{396^{4k}}$ and the solvable quintic $z^5-5z-396 = 0$?

(Updated with new information.) I. Five eta quotients and the Monster? Given Dedekind eta function $\eta(\tau)$, define the five eta quotients which in fact are the McKay-Thompson series 1A, 2A, 3A, ...
Tito Piezas III's user avatar
13 votes
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Galois groups of special polynomials

This question is motivated by long experiments with GAP. Call a monic polynomial with integer coefficients special in case it is irreducible and has only coefficients $-1$, $0$ or $1$. Let $n \geq 5$....
Mare's user avatar
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Galois group of polynomials related to Fibonacci and Catalan numbers

Let $F_n$ be the Fibonacci and $C_n$ the Catalan numbers. Define a polynomial by $F_n(x):=\sum\limits_{k=1}^{n}{F_k x^{n-k}}$. For example $F_8(x)=x^7+x^6+2x^5+3x^4+5x^3+8x^2+13x+21$. And another ...
Mare's user avatar
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Actions of $\mathbb Z/2\mathbb Z$ on algebraically closed fields and even-dimensional spheres and parallel between Galois theory and covering theory

It is well known that there is a parallel between Galois theory and covering theory. So I wonder whether there is a deep similarity between the following two facts: Artin-Schreier theorem. The only ...
evgeny's user avatar
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12 votes
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Is there an algorithm to compute a Belyi map for the Riemann surface?

Let $y^2=x^5-x-1$ be an affine model of a projective complex curve, is there an algorithm to compute the Belyi map (preferably of small degree), i.e., map to the projective line ramified only at $\{0,...
Gregory Eritsyan's user avatar
12 votes
0 answers
265 views

Galois groups of classical differential equations

I am currently on the lookout for good motivational examples for differential Galois theory, and I was wondering the following: Is there a book or article devoted (either partially or completely) to ...
R.P.'s user avatar
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Algebraic Closure of the field of rational functions

Using the theorem of Puiseux, one concludes that the algebraic closure of $\mathbb C(X)$ is the set of algebraic elements (over $\mathbb C(X)$) of the algebraic closure of $\mathbb C((X))$, which is $\...
Z.A.Z.Z's user avatar
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11 votes
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Evaluating products of cyclotomic polynomials at roots of unity

Are there general non-trivial conditions on $p(\cdot)$ and $n$, where $p(\cdot)$ is a product of cyclotomic polynomials and $n$ is a positive integer, such that all the coefficients of $p(\cdot)$ are ...
James Propp's user avatar
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11 votes
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Do we know that 'most' finite groups are Galois groups of number fields?

The inverse Galois problem is a classical problem in mathematics and asks whether every finite group can be realized as the Galois group of a finite field extension of the rational numbers. The ...
Stanley Yao Xiao's user avatar
10 votes
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234 views

If $H$ is a quotient of $G$, does there exist an $H$-extension of $\mathbb{Q}$ not contained in a $G$-extension?

Let $\phi\colon G\rightarrow H$ be a surjective homomorphism between finite groups. Assume that $\phi$ is not split, in other words there exists no homomorphism $\sigma\colon H\rightarrow G$ such that ...
Jef's user avatar
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452 views

What does Hilbert's 90 theorem tell us about Galois fixed points in projective space?

Consider the following statement: If $K\subseteq L$ is a Galois extension of fields with Galois group $G$ and $x \in \mathbb{P}^n(L)$ is such that $\sigma(x)=x$ for all $\sigma\in G$, then $x \in \...
Gro-Tsen's user avatar
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10 votes
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379 views

Recognizing the Galois group from the field discriminant

Along the lines of the general question "How much does the discriminant of a number field reveal about the field?", I was wondering how often it happens that the discriminant of some number field ...
Joachim König's user avatar
10 votes
0 answers
131 views

Inverse Galois problem for $2$-groups with an involution as complex conjugation

It is known that the inverse Galois problem for solvable groups was solved by Shafarevich. My question is the following: given $G$ a finite $2$-group and $s$ an element of order $2$ in $G$. Can we ...
orangeskid's user avatar
10 votes
0 answers
308 views

Are polynomials with non-($S_n$ or $A_n$) Galois groups discrete?

There are various results, beginning with van der Waerden, on the asymptotic number of integral polynomials with bounded coefficients, whose Galois group is $S_n$. Some of these results also include $...
Jacob Bond's user avatar
10 votes
0 answers
286 views

Galois action on units of totally real cyclic numberfields

Given a cyclic totally real number field $K/\mathbb{Q}$ of degree n with unit group isomorphic to $\mathbb{Z}/2 \times \mathbb{Z}^{n-1}$, how much is known about the action of Gal$(K/\mathbb{Q})$ on ...
Christine McMeekin's user avatar
10 votes
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248 views

Expressing every algebraic number using roots of trinomials?

This question is a continuation of Is every polynomial a factor of a trinomial? We say that $T(X) \in \mathbb{Q}[X]$ is a trinomial if there exist $A,B,C \in \mathbb{Q}$ such that $T(X) = AX^n + BX^m ...
Pablo's user avatar
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10 votes
0 answers
712 views

The construction of the 257gon

If $\zeta\in\mathbb C$ is a primitive $257$th root of unity, the Galois group $\operatorname{Gal}(\mathbb Q(\zeta)/\mathbb Q)$ is cyclic of order $256=2^8$, so we know that there is a sequence of $8$ ...
Mariano Suárez-Álvarez's user avatar
10 votes
0 answers
1k views

Automorphisms of local fields

It is an amusing coincidence (at least it appears to be a coincidence to me) that any completion of the field $\mathbb{Q}$ has trivial automorphism group as an abstract field, i.e. when ignoring the ...
Robert Kucharczyk's user avatar
9 votes
0 answers
261 views

Who was the first to prove that the automorphism group of a finite field is cyclic and is generated by the Frobenius automorphism?

$\DeclareMathOperator\Aut{Aut}$It is well-known that the automorphism group $\Aut(F)$ of a finite field $F$ of characteristic $p$ is cyclic of order $n$ where $|F|=p^n$. Moreover, the cyclic group $\...
Taras Banakh's user avatar
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9 votes
0 answers
256 views

Compass and straightedge construction of Poncelet polygons

Gauss–Wantzel theorem states that A regular n-gon is constructible with straightedge and compass if and only if $n = 2^kp_1p_2...p_t$, where $p_i$'s are distinct Fermat primes (A Fermat prime is a ...
Fedor Nilov's user avatar
9 votes
0 answers
699 views

Motivic Galois theory and Betti realizations?

Why Motivic Galois groups are defined with Betti realizations? (In fact Absolute Galois groups can be defined in this way (with Betti realizations), why they are so related?).
peter's user avatar
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9 votes
0 answers
203 views

Characterizing regular Galois extensions by the set of their specializations

Let $E$ and $F$ be two regular Galois extensions of $\mathbb{Q}(t)$ with group $G$, and let $E_{t_0}$ resp. $F_{t_0}$ be the residue fields corresponding to specializing $t\mapsto t_0\in \mathbb{Q}$. ...
user83514's user avatar
8 votes
0 answers
294 views

Relationships among constructions of fundamental group for schemes

There seem to be several constructions of fundamental group for schemes and stacks: by Grothendieck, Deligne, Nori, Noohi, Esnault-Hai, Vakil-Wickelgren, perhaps others as well. I am trying to ...
Galois groupie's user avatar
8 votes
0 answers
313 views

Finding a cyclic cubic extension of a field

Let $K$ be a field and let $E/K$ be a Galois extension of degree 6 with $\text{Gal}(E/K) = S_3$, the symmetric group on 3 letters. Pick two different transpositions $s_1, s_2$ in $S_3$ (hence $s_1s_2$ ...
thierry stulemeijer's user avatar
8 votes
0 answers
376 views

Cutting and pasting in Galois theory

I want to ask who was the first to use cut-paste construction in Galois theory. This question is motivated from the trend in contemporary Galois theory to use patching methods to construct Galois ...
Lior Bary-Soroker's user avatar
8 votes
0 answers
240 views

Involution on sextic polynomials?

The strangeness of $Aut(S_{6})$ suggests the following question: Let $a_{1}, a_{2}, a_{3}, a_{4}, a_{5}, a_{6}$ be the zeros of a 6th degree polynomial $P$ over a field $F$. Let $Q(x_{1},x_{2},x_{3},...
DavidLHarden's user avatar
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7 votes
0 answers
157 views

Non-abelian ray class fields for local fields

Let $K$ be a non-Archimedean local field. Then, thanks to work of Koch (when $K$ has positive characteristic) and Jannsen-Wingberg (when $K$ has characteristic zero, and odd residual characteristic) ...
Riccardo Pengo's user avatar
7 votes
0 answers
149 views

Finding when a certain product in a cyclotomic field is equal to one

For the following, fix $m\geq 2$, and let $a_{0},\dots,a_{m-1}\in\mathbb{Z}$ be such that $\sum_{k=0}^{m-1}a_{k}=0$. I would like to find the exact conditions on the $a_{k}$ so that the following ...
Ian Montague's user avatar
7 votes
0 answers
205 views

Reference request: projectivity of the absolute Galois group of $\mathbb{Q}^{\mathrm{ab}}$

$\newcommand{\ab}{\mathrm{ab}}$Let $\mathbb{Q}^{\ab}$ denote the maximal abelian extension of $\mathbb{Q}$. I have heard the absolute Galois group of $\mathbb{Q}^{\ab}$ is projective (e.g. see this ...
projectivityq's user avatar
7 votes
1 answer
707 views

How hard is it to find the first layer of this basic $\mathbb{Z}_p$-extension?

$\DeclareMathOperator\Gal{Gal}$Let $p$ be a prime number and $\zeta_{p^n}$ be a primitive $p^n$-th root of unity. We know that there is a unique subfield $\mathbb{Q}_1$ of $\mathbb{Q}(\zeta_{p^2})$ ...
matt stokes's user avatar
7 votes
0 answers
391 views

Do algebraic completion/topological completion of fields always terminate? If so, are they unique?

Take the field $\mathbb{Q}$, If we complete it topologically with respect to the Euclidean norm, we get $\mathbb{R}$, then if we complete it algebraically, we get $\mathbb{C}$. On the other hand, the ...
JLMF's user avatar
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7 votes
0 answers
252 views

Possible Galois groups of residue fields of ramification points of a Galois branched cover of curves

Here's the version of the question I'm particularly interested in (though I'm also interested in other variants described near the end). Let $K$ be the function field of a smooth projective variety ...
Will Chen's user avatar
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7 votes
0 answers
330 views

Non-linear Galois descent

This question is about Galois theory. So let $K / k$ be a Galois extension of fields. Let us assume that $K / k$ is finite dimensional, though everything can be made to work in the profinite case by ...
Jakob Werner's user avatar
  • 1,153
7 votes
0 answers
253 views

Is this Related to Tannakian Formalism?

I am wondering how I might be able to express the following phenomenon, which is essentially equivalent to Artin's linear independence of characters, in Tannakian formalism. Any help would be much ...
user avatar
6 votes
0 answers
169 views

Classification of Étale algebras without Galois theory and then deducing Galois theory

In Milne's Galois theory notes — chapter 8, quoted below, he remarks that it is possible to classify étale algebras without using Galois theory then deduce Galois theory and he will explain this ...
Melon_Musk's user avatar
6 votes
0 answers
511 views

Extensions of p-adic number fields

Let $p$ be a prime number and $\mathbb{Q}_p$ be the $p-$adic rational field. Let $E/\mathbb{Q}_p$ be a fixed finite extension. On this site, I define a finite extension $F/E$ to be "good" if ...
Eric's user avatar
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6 votes
0 answers
271 views

What, if anything, do we hope and expect to understand about (classical) Galois groups?

I was reading Franz Lemmermeyer's introduction to Fermat's Last and Wiles' Theorem, where he states Galois representations $\rho_p : G_\mathbb Q\rightarrow GL_2(\mathbb Z_p)$ are used for studying ...
plm's user avatar
  • 982
6 votes
0 answers
421 views

Can Langlands correpondence be restated using topos?

Langlands correspondence describes an equivalence between Galois representations and automorphic representations under some conditions. Laurent Lafforgue applying Olivia Caramello thesis described in ...
jaylooker's user avatar
6 votes
0 answers
147 views

Using the Rogers-Selberg identities to solve certain septics?

Given the Ramanujan theta function $f(a,b)$ and the Rogers-Selberg identities, \begin{align} U_1 &= \frac{f(-q,-q^6)}{f(-q^2)} = \sum_{n=0}^\infty \frac {q^{2n^2+2n}} {(q^2;q^2)_n\,(-q;q)_{2n+1}} =...
Tito Piezas III's user avatar

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