On bases of Washington's group of circular units of some real cyclic number fields (Q2436765): Difference between revisions

Let \(F\) be an abelian extension of \(\mathbb Q\) and let \(E(F)\) be the unit group of the ring of integers of \(F\). In [Invent. Math. 62, 181--234 (1980; Zbl 0465.12001)], \textit{W. Sinnott} defined the group \(C_S(F)\) of circular units in terms of norms from cyclotomic fields. The reviewer [Introduction to cyclotomic fields. 2nd ed. Graduate Texts in Mathematics. 83. New York, NY: Springer. (1997; Zbl 0966.11047)] defined a group of units, denoted in the present paper by \(C_W(F)\), as the intersection with \(F\) of the circular units of a cyclotomic field containing \(F\). The units \(C_S(F)\) are much better understood that \(C_W(F)\). The current paper considers the case where \(F/\mathbb Q\) is a cyclic extension of degree \(\ell\) contained in a compositum of a set of prime-power real cyclotomic fields such that every ramified prime is totally ramified. The main result is the construction of a \(\mathbb Z\)-basis of \(C_W(F)\). A consequence is that \([C_W(F) : C_S(F)] = \ell^{s-2} 2^{\ell -1} \tilde{d}\), where \(s\) is the number of ramified primes in \(F/\mathbb Q\) and \(\tilde{d}\) is an explicitly described integer. This implies that \(\ell^{s-1} \tilde{d}\) divides the class number of \(F\).