Cohen-Lenstra heuristic and roots of unity (Q531783): Difference between revisions

The author presents numerical evidence indicating that the well known Cohen-Lenstra-Martinet heuristic in [\textit{H. Cohen} and \textit{H. W. Lenstra jun.}, Heuristics on class groups of number fields, Number theory, Proc. Journ. Arith., Noodwijkerhout/Neth. 1983, Lect. Notes Math. 1068, 33--62 (1984; Zbl 0558.12002), \textit{H. Cohen} and \textit{J. Martinet}, J. Reine Angew. Math. 404, 39--76 (1990; Zbl 0699.12016)] for class groups of number fields is not applicable to the \(p\)-part of the class group in the case where the base field or intermediate fields contains \(p\)th roots of unity. In particular, the heuristic seems to fail always when \(p=2\), and the underlying assumption that the frequency of groups is governed essentially by the reciprocal of the order of their automorphism groups does not seem to be valid. Inspired by results of \textit{F. Gerth} in [Ill. J. Math. 33, No. 1, 132--142 (1989; Zbl 0663.12012), Manuscr. Math. 70, No. 1, 39--50 (1990; Zbl 0716.11053)] the author modifies the original formulas of the heuristic to make new predictions which agree quite closely with his computational results.