The fields of values of the height zero characters (Q6126731)

Every abelian number field can be realized as the field of values of a complex irreducible character of a finite group. For this reason it is interesting to characterize the fields of values of the irreducible characters of degree not divisible by a fixed prime \(p\). For instance, the quadratic fields of values of the odd-degree irreducible characters of all finite groups are exactly the fields \(\mathbb{Q}(i)\) and \(\mathbb{Q}(\sqrt{d})\), where \(1 \not =d \equiv 1 \; (\mathrm{mod} 4)\) is a square-free integer. If \(\chi\) is a complex character of a group \(G\) and \(\mathbb{Q}(\chi)\) is the smallest field extension of \(\mathbb{Q}\) containing the values of \(\chi\), then \(c(\chi)\), the conductor of \(\chi\), is the smallest positive integer \(n\) such that \(\mathbb{Q}(\chi)\) is contained in the \(n\)-th cyclotomic field \(\mathbb{Q}_{n} = \mathbb{Q}(e^{2\pi i/n})\). For any subfield \(F\) of \(\mathbb{C}\), let \(F(\chi)=\langle F, \mathbb{Q}(\chi) \rangle\). The first main result of the paper under review is Theorem A: Let \(G\) be a finite group, and let \(\chi\) be an irreducible complex character of 2-height zero of \(G\). Write \(c(\chi)= 2^{a}m\), where \(m\) is odd and \(a \geq 0\). Then \(\mathbb{Q}_{2^{a}} \subseteq \mathbb{Q}_{m}(\chi)\). The fields of values of the 2-height zero irreducible characters can be characterized in the following way. Let \(\mathcal{F}_{2}\) be the set of abelian number fields \(F\) such that \(\mathbb{Q}_{n}= \langle \mathbb{Q}_{m} , F \rangle\), where \(n\) is the conductor of the field \(F\) and m is the \(2'\)-part of \(n\). Theorem B: The set consisting of the fields of values of the 2-height zero irreducible complex characters of finite groups is exactly \(\mathcal{F}_{2}\). As a consequence of Theorem B the authors obtain Corollary C: Let \(F\) be a quadratic number field. Then \(F=\mathbb{Q}(\chi)\) for some 2-height zero irreducible complex character \(\chi\) of a finite group if and only if \(F=\mathbb{Q}(\sqrt{d})\) for some odd square-free integer \(d \not = 1\).