Fields with almost small absolute Galois group (Q312261)

The paper under review is concerned with the following two conditions on a field \(F\): (P1) For every \(n \in \mathbb{N}\), \(F\) has only finitely many extensions of degree \(n\), (P2) for every \(n \in \mathbb{N}\) and every finite extension \(E\) of \(F\), the subgroup \(\left(E^{\times}\right)^n\) of the (multiplicative) group \(E^{\times}\) has a finite index. It surveys the known results regarding how these two conditions are related, and adds the following two results: (R1) If a field \(F\) satisfies (P2), then a field elementarily equivalent to \(F\) need not satisfy P2, (R2) even if all fields elementarily equivalent to \(F\) satisfy (P2), \(F\) need not satisfy (P1). These results are proved by constructing suitable examples. This is achieved by first translating the problem into the language of groups, via the correspondence \(F \mapsto G(F)\), where \(G(F)\) is the absolute Galois group of \(F\).