Indices of inseparability and refined ramification breaks (Q403277)

The paper under review studies a totally ramified \(({\mathbb Z}/p{\mathbb Z})^2\)-extension \(L/K\) which has a single ramification break \(b\), where \(K\) is a finite extension of \({\mathbb Q}_p\). Especially, two invariants of such an extension are considered; one is the refined ramification break \(b_*\) defined by \textit{N. P. Byott} and \textit{G. G. Elder} [J. Number Theory 129, No. 1, 84--101 (2009; Zbl 1196.11156)] and the other is the index of inseparability \(i_1\) defined by \textit{V. Heiermann} [J. Number Theory 59, No. 1, 159--202 (1996; Zbl 0876.11053)]. Here \(b_*\) is defined by \[ b_*=\min\{v_L(\sigma_1\circ \sigma_2^{[-\delta]}(\alpha)-\alpha)-v_L(\alpha)\,|\,\alpha\in O_L\;, \alpha\neq 0\,\}, \] where for any finite extension \(F\) of \({\mathbb Q}_p\), \(O_F\), \(M_F\), \(\pi_F\) and \(v_F\) denote the ring of integers of \(F\), the maximal ideal of \(O_F\), a prime element of \(F\) and the valuation on \(F\) with \(v_F(\pi_F)=1\), respectively, \(\sigma_1\) and \(\sigma_2\) are generators for the Galois group \(\mathrm{Gal}(L/K)\) of \(L/K\), \(\delta\in \mu_{q-1}\)~(the set of \((q-1)\)th roots of unity in \(K\)) satisfying \(\beta_1/\beta_2\equiv \delta\) (mod \(M_L\)) with \(\beta_i=\sigma_i(\pi_L)-\pi_L\) for \(i=1,2\) and \(q\) the order of the residue field of \(K\), and \[ \sigma^{[\zeta]}=\sum_{n=0}^{p-1}{{\zeta}\choose {n}}(\sigma-1)^n \] is an element of the group ring \(O_{K_0}[\mathrm{Gal}(L/K)]\) for \(\sigma \in \mathrm{Gal}(L/K)\) and \(\zeta\in \mu_{q-1}\) with the maximal unramified subextension \(K_0\) of \(K/{\mathbb Q}_p\). On the other hand, \(i_1\) is defined by \[ i_1=\min\{i_1^{*},\,i_2^{*}+p^2e\,\}\;\;\text{with}\;\; i_j^{*}=\min\{h\geq 0\,|\,c_h\neq 0, v_p(h+p^2)\leq j\}\,, \] where \(e\) is the absolute ramification index of \(K\) and \(c_h\) are given by \(\pi_K=\sum_{h=0}^{\infty}c_h\pi_L^{h+p^2}\) with \(c_h\in \mu_{q-1}\cup\{0\}\). After giving properties of the inverse \(\Lambda_p\) of the bijection from \(M_K\) to \(U_K^1\) induced by the Artin-Hasse exponential series \(E_p(X)\) where \(U_K^s=1+M_K^s\) for a positive integer \(s\), the following theorem is obtained for such an extension \(L/K\): { Theorem 3.1.} Let \(p>2\) and \(H=\text{N}_{L/K}(L^{\times})\). If \(\mu_{p^2-1} \not\subset K\), let \(k=b\); otherwise let \(k\) be the smallest nonnegative integer such that \(\Lambda_p(H\cap U_K^{k+1})\) is a \({\mathbb Z}_{p^2}\)-module, where \({\mathbb Z}_{p^2}\) is the ring of integers of \({\mathbb Q}_p(\zeta_{p^2-1})\) with a primitive \(p^2-1\)th root of unity \(\zeta_{p^2-1}\). Then \[ i_1=\min\{p^2b-pk,\,p^2e,\,p^2b-b\}\;. \] Next by using \textit{S. V. Vostokov}'s formula of the Kummer pairing [Sov. Math., Dokl. 19, 198--201 (1978); translation from Dokl. Akad. Nauk SSSR 238, 1276--1278 (1978; Zbl 0393.12001)] and giving the reformulation of the Byott-Elder formula for \(b_*\) in terms of \(\Lambda_p(R_0)\), where \(R=(L^{\times})^p\cap K^{\times}\) is the subgroup of \(K^{\times}\) corresponding to \(L/K\) under Kummer theory and \(R_0=R\cap U_K^{\frac{pe}{p-1}-b}\) , the relation between \(b_*\) and \(i_1\) is obtained as follows: { Theorem 4.6.} Let \(p>2\) and \(L/K\) be as above. Assume also that \(K\) contains a primitive \(p\)th root of unity and \(i_1\neq p^2b-pb\). Then \[ b_*=i_1-p^2b+pb+b\;. \]