Brumer elements over a real quadratic base field (Q912146)

Let K/k be an abelian extension of a real quadratic number field k with Galois group G. According to the Artin reciprocity law, G is isomorphic to the ray class group R associated with K/k. For \({\mathfrak c}\in R\), let \(\sigma\) (\({\mathfrak c})\in G\) be the image of \({\mathfrak c}\) in G. The Brumer element \(\omega\) (K) associated to K/k (often called a ``generalized Stickelberger element'') is an element of the integral group ring \({\mathbb{Z}}[G]\), given by \[ \omega (K)=W\sum_{{\mathfrak c}\in R}\zeta (0,{\mathfrak c})\sigma ({\mathfrak c})^{-1}\quad. \] Here W is the order of the group of roots of unity in K, and the rational number \(\zeta\) (0,\({\mathfrak c})\) is the value at \(s=0\) of the partial zeta function associated to the ray class \({\mathfrak c}\) which is defined for \(Re(s)>1\) by \(\zeta\) (s,\({\mathfrak c})=\sum N({\mathfrak A})^{-s}\) with \({\mathfrak A}\) running over all integral ideals in \({\mathfrak c}\). According to the conjecture of Brumer-Stark [cf. \textit{J. Tate}, ``Les conjectures de Stark sur les fonctions L d'Artin en \(s=0\)'', Prog. Math. 47, Birkhäuser, Boston (1984; Zbl 0545.12009)], the Brumer element \(\omega\) (K) should annihilate the class group of K, that is, \({\mathfrak I}^{\omega}\) should be principal for every ideal \({\mathfrak I}\) in K. The main goal of the paper under review is to establish a so called ``CF-formula'' for \(\zeta\) (0,\({\mathfrak c})\), and to prove a congruence for these numbers, originally due to \textit{J. Coates} and \textit{W. Sinnott} [Proc. Lond. Math. Soc., III. Ser. 34, 365-384 (1977; Zbl 0354.12009)] which is equivalent to the integrality property of \(\omega\) (K). The paper ends with a discussion of 10 examples where the Brumer elements are calculated explicitly.