On norm residue symbols and conductors (Q5929403)

Let \(p\) be a prime number and \(K\) be a finite unramified extension of \(\mathbb{Q}_p\), the field of \(p\)-adic numbers. For any integer \(m\), fix a \(p^m\)-th root of unity \(\zeta_{p^m}\). Consider the Kummer extension \(K(\zeta_{p^n}, \root p^n \of{a})/K(\zeta_{p^n})\), where \(a\) is a non-zero element of \(K\). In this paper, the conductor of this extension is explicitly computed without any use of recent general reciprocity laws. When \(p\) is odd, the result could be stated as follows: decompose \(a=p^b \varepsilon u\) canonically with \(b\) a rational integer, \(\varepsilon\) a \((q-1)\)-th root of unity where \(q\) is the order of the residue field of \(K\) and \(u\) is a fundamental unit of \(K\). Set \(w:=\min\{v(b),v(u-1)\}\), with \(v\) the normalized valuation on \(K\). Then the conductor of the extension \(K(\zeta_{p^n},\root p^n\of{a})/K(\zeta_{p^n})\) is equal to: \[ \begin{alignedat}{2} p(1-\zeta_p)^2 &\quad \text{if}\quad w=0;&& \\ (1-\zeta_{p^w})^2 &\quad \text{if}\quad 1\leq w<n &\quad \text{and}\quad &v(b+u-1)=w;\\ (1-\zeta_{p^w})(1-\zeta_{p^{w+1}}) &\quad \text{if}\quad w<n &\quad\text{and}\quad &v(b+u-1)>w; \\ (1-\zeta_{p^n})^2 & \quad \text{if}\quad w=n=v(u-1);&& \\ 1 &\quad \text{otherwise.}&&\end{alignedat} \] The proof is essentially based on Artin and Hasse's explicit calculation of the Hilbert symbol.