Monday, 23 July 2007

Given a number field K, when is its Hilbert class field an abelian extension of mathbbQ?

I happened to come across this question again today. In some cases at least, the Hilbert class field H of an abelian extension K of mathbfQ will have to be abelian over mathbfQ for purely algebraic reasons.



Let F be any field, K|F an abelian extension of group G=mathrmGal(K|F) and containing a primitive n-th root of unity for some n>1, omega:Gto(mathbfZ/nmathbfZ)times the cyclotomic character giving the action of G on mun, and H|K an abelian extension of exponent dividing n. Then H=K(rootnofD) for some subgroup DsubsetKtimes/Ktimesn, by Kummer theory. It can be checked that H|F is galoisian if and only if D is G-stable. When such is the case, the conjugation action of G on mathrmGal(H|K) coming from the short exact sequence
1tomathrmGal(H|K)tomathrmGal(H|F)toGto1
is trivial if and only if G acts on D via omega. In this situation (H=K(rootnofD) for some subgroup Dsubset(Ktimes/Ktimesn)(omega)), a sufficient condition for H to be abelian over F, is that the order of G be prime to n, because then mathrmGal(H|F)=mathrmGal(H|K)timesmathrmGal(K|F).



I'm sure this situation can be realised when F=mathbfQ, for example when the finite abelian extension K has odd degree [K:mathbfQ], n=2, the class group of K has order (1 or) 2, and H is the Hilbert class field of K. In this case the extension H|mathbfQ will be necessarily abelian.

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