No label defined (Q4552287)

The aim of Ram Murty's book is to present an introductory course (on the senior undergraduate and graduate student level) on the basics of \(p\)-adic analysis and \(p\)-adic analytic number theory. To some extent, the exposition follows the historical development of the subject. The author begins with the Kummer congruences for the Bernoulli numbers. Then he introduces \(p\)-adic numbers, gives proofs of the Ostrowski theorem and Hensel's lemma, as well as the Mahler expansion theorem for \(p\)-adic continuous functions. This leads naturally to \(p\)-adic interpolation, Mazur's integration theory, and \(p\)-adic \(L\)-functions. Notions related to the Newton polygon are followed by an introduction to Iwasawa theory. The book contains more than a hundred excercises and some references for further study.