Integral closure of a quartic extension (Q2341354)

The authors compute the integral closure \(\widetilde A\) of a quartic extension \(A=R[\alpha]\) of a Noetherian unique factorization domain \(R\) in which \(2\) and \(3\) are units. Here \(\alpha\) is a root of an irreducible polynomial \(f(x)\) of degree \(4\) over the fraction field of \(R\). The authors assume that the polynomial \(f\) is \textit{minimal}, as defined in the paper, since every quartic extension is given by a minimal polynomial \(f\). Using the factorizations in \(R\) of the coefficients of \(f\) and of the algebraic invariants of \(f\), the authors obtain the factorization of the discriminant of the extension \(\widetilde A/R\) in \(R\). They also compute describe the ramification in \(\widetilde A\). Using the localizations of \(\widetilde A\) at the primes of \(R\), the authors compute the trace-free submodule \(\widetilde{A_0}\) of \(\widetilde A\) as a syzygy module in order to obtain the integral closure: \(\widetilde A=R\oplus \widetilde A_0\).