Number fields (Q5916065)

Marcus' book has always been one of my favourites about algebraic number theory. It is well structured and gives the reader lots of motivation to learn more about the subject. It is one of the rare books which can help students to learn new stuff by themselves by solving the numerous exercises which cover very deep and important results (see below). The prerequisites for the reader are kept to a minimum making this book accessible to students at a much earlier stage than usual textbooks on algebraic number theory. This goal was achieved at the cost of omitting local methods. [For a review of the first edition see Zbl 0383.12001.] I highly welcome the second edition of Marcus' book and hope that it will still inspire students and all lovers of number theory. After about forty years, I was especially curious which changes or supplements were made. Surprisingly, the contents remain unchanged. I believe that the reason for this is that Daniel A. Marcus died. What's new? The type setting is in {\TeX} now making the book even easier to read. There is a beautiful new foreword by Barry Mazur: ``This book offers such a fine approach to our subject and is such a marvelous guide to it, introducing the reader to many modern themes of extreme interest in number theory.'' Mazur especially mentions \textit{Class Field Theory} and the ``Langlands Program'' in this context. He also points out that computational methods have achieved high interest in the last fourty years. Consequently, a small change in the second edition is the replacement of the short original \textit{Bibliography} by a more modern short list \textit{Further Reading}. The new and old contents are shortly presented. In Chapter 1 Marcus illustrates the necessity to enlarge the rational numbers \(\mathbb{Q}\) via finite field extensions contained in the complex numbers \(\mathbb{C}\). His motivation is the solution of Fermat's equation \(x^m+y^m=z^m\) in integers \(x,y,z\) and for prime exponents \(m\). In this context already notions like units and class numbers are explained and the importance of a decomposition into prime elements. At the end of this (and every) chapter there are a variety of illustrative exercises. By solving them the reader develops a much better understanding of the introduced notions. In Chapter 2 number fields \(K\) and number rings are rigorously defined. Marcus' number rings are usually called \textit{orders} in the present literature. It is shown that every order is a free \(\mathbb{Z}\)-module the rank of which is the field degree (dimension as a vector space over \(\mathbb{Q}\)). Every order is contained in a (unique) maximal one. A special basis for the maximal order is given in Theorem 13. Chapter 3 covers the factorization of ideals of orders into prime ideals. Marcus proves the known decomposition laws and also Kummer's criterion (Theorem 27). The more special decomposition laws for Galois extensions \(K/\mathbb{Q}\) are treated in Chapter 4. The decomposition group and the inertia group are introduced and also the Frobenius automorphism which is nowadays crucial for computational class field theory. In Chapter 5 the finiteness of the class group is proven and also Dirichlet's famous unit theorem. The proofs are classical and are based on methods from the geometry of numbers. In Chapter 6 the distribution of prime ideals of orders over the ideal classes is discussed. The asymptotic equal distribution is shown in Theorems 39 and 40. This chapter serves essentially as a preparation for the last two chapters. Chapter 7 is dedicated to analytic number theory. Dirichlet \(L\)-series and the Dedekind zeta function are introduced. The class number formula is proven. (It relates the class number of a number field \(K\) with the residue of the Dedekind zeta function at 1.) In Chapter 8 Marcus considers the distribution of prime ideals in number fields, especially with respect to the Galois group. This is needed for studying class field theory. The latter is of course beyond the scope of this book. But Marcus describes the important ideas nicely just assuming three -- what he calls -- ``basic facts''. There are four 4 Appendices: A: Commutative rings and Ideals (including the Chinese Remainder Theorem and Eisenstein's Criterion), B: Galois Theory for Subfields of \(\mathbb{C}\) (finite extensions, Galois correspondence), C: Finite Fields and Rings, D: Two Pages of Primes. Parts A--C are supposed to support students which have not yet sufficient knowledge in Algebra. Part D is pretty much outdated, but at the occurence of the first edition a list of primes was certainly helpful for solving part of the exercises. The Exercises! They are definitely a highlight of Marcus' book. There is a total of 303 carefully chosen exercises, some of them theoretical and others mainly computational. They serve different purposes. Some are exercises in the usual sense which help the reader to understand the theory. Others treat special aspects which discuss the necessity of premises of theorems. Also, sometimes parts of proofs of theorems are omitted in the text and moved to the exercises. And then there are very important deep results (not treated in the text) which the reader can achieve himself step by step following Marcus' instructions. We only mention the Theorem of Kronecker-Weber, part of the solution of the class number one problem for imaginary quadratic fields, and the Tschebotarev Density Theorem. The second edition of Marcus' book still treats number fields in an original way. The prerequisites for the first chapters are kept to a minimum. However, the book contains -- we cite frome Mazur's foreword -- ``everyting you need to learn, to have a good grounding in the subject: ``\textit{Number Fields}''.