On the history of the study of ideal class groups (Q2475439)

In 1924 and 1929, \textit{N. Chebotarev} published two articles [``Eine Verallgemeinerung des Minkowski\-schen Satzes mit Anwendung auf die Betrachtung der Kör\-per\-ideal\-klas\-sen'', Odessa, Ber. Forsch.-Inst \(1_4\), 17--20 (1924; JFM 50.0109.02) and ``Zur Gruppentheorie des Klassenkörpers'', J. Reine Angew. Math. 161, 179--193 (1929; JFM 55.0698.01)], in which he studied the ideal class groups of number fields. Both had a lasting impact: the first article contains what we nowadays call Chebotarev's monodromy theorem (the inertia subgroups of a normal extension \(K/\mathbb Q\) generate its Galois group, a generalization of Minkowski's result that every finite extension of \(\mathbb Q\) is ramified), in the second article Chebotarev introduces, among other notions, central class fields. The actual results of these two articles, on the other hand, have remained rather obscure. In his first article, Chebotarev explains the fact that prime factors \(p\) of the minus class numbers \(h_\ell^-\) of the fields of \(\ell\)-th roots of unity have a tendency to satisfy \(p \equiv 1 \bmod (\ell-1)\) by proving, for abelian extension \(K/\mathbb Q\) with prime power conductor, a congruence \(p \equiv 1 \bmod n\) on mild assumptions on the degree \(n = (K:\mathbb Q)\) and the class numbers of the subfields of \(K/\mathbb Q\). Chebotarev's proof is remarkable and uses the embedding of a certain Galois group in the full metacyclic group. In his second article, this result is generalized to arbitrary cyclic extensions of \(\mathbb Q\). The author next discusses related results due to \textit{H. Hasse} [Über die Klassen\-zahl Abelscher Zahl\-kör\-per, Berlin: Akademie- Verlag (1952; Zbl 0046.26003), reprint Berlin etc.: Springer-Verlag (1985; Zbl 0668.12004)] and \textit{H. W. Leopoldt} [Abh. Deutsch. Akad. Wiss. Berlin, Math.-Naturw. Kl. 1953, No. 2, 1--48 (1954; Zbl 0059.03501)] on class numbers of cyclotomic fields, \textit{K. Iwasawa}'s rank theorem [ Nagoya Math. J. 27, 239--247 (1966; Zbl 0139.28104)], \textit{J. Masley}'s structure theorem [Algebr. Number Fields, Proc. Symp. London math. Soc., Univ. Durham 1975, 465--474 (1977; Zbl 0365.12007)], and its generalization by \textit{G. Cornell} and \textit{M. Rosen} [ J. Number Theory 13, 1--11 (1981; Zbl 0456.12005)]. The final section sketches the reviewer's approach to these results via elementary representation theory [ J. Algebra 264, No. 2, 553--564 (2003; Zbl 1032.12008)]; extending this approach to modular representations still is an open problem, which has applications to the determination of class field towers [see \textit{K. Yamamura}, J. Théor. Nombres Bordx. 13, No. 2, 633--649 (2001; Zbl 1013.11076)].