Norm residue symbol and the first case of Fermat's equation (Q5960974)

Let \(p\) be an odd prime and \(F\) a number field. The author studies the first case of Fermat's equation for \((F,p)\), i.e.\ the existence of algebraic integers \(x,y,z\in F\) such that \(x^p+y^p+z^p=0\) and the absolute norm of \(xyz\) is not divisible by \(p\). Supposing that \(p\geq 5\) is totally ramified in \(F/\mathbb Q\) and that \(p\) does not divide the absolute degree of a normal closure of \(F/\mathbb Q\), he shows how such solution leads to the construction of a number in the \(p\)th cyclotomic field which is orthogonal to the real cyclotomic units for the norm residue symbol; this contradicts to Terjanian's conjecture for \(p\), and implies that \(p\) is a Wieferich prime, that \(p\) divides the Bernoulli number \(B_{p-3}\) and that the index of irregularity \(i(p)>\sqrt p-2\). Two other nice results give Eichler type criteria for quadratic fields. If \(F\) is a quadratic field of discriminant \(d(F)\), \(p\geq 13\), and the Legendre symbol \((-3d(F)/p)=-1\), then the existence of a solution of the first case of Fermat's equation for \((F,p)\) gives that \(i(p)>\sqrt{p/2}-2\). If \(F\) is a real quadratic field and \(\chi\) is the nontrivial Dirichlet character associated to \(F\), then the existence of a solution implies that \(\max(i(p),i_\chi(p))>\sqrt{p/2}-2\), where \(i_\chi(p)\) is the number of even integers \(i\), \(2\leq i\leq p-1\), such that \(p\) divides the generalized Bernoulli number \(B_{i,\chi}\). The paper ends with the following nice observation: let \(p\) be an odd prime and \(F\) a quadratic field different from the third cyclotomic field, then the sum of the \(p\)th powers of two non-zero algebraic integers of \(F\) cannot be a unit in \(F\).