Minimal ramification in nilpotent extensions (Q657369)

This paper addresses, for \(G\) a finite nilpotent group of odd order and \(K\) a number field, the following minimal ramification problem in Inverse Galois Theory: what is the minimal number of ramified primes in \(L/K\) as \(L/K\) runs over all Galois realizations of \(G\) over \(K\)? This number is denoted by \({\min\;ram}_K(G)\). In his exposition of the Scholz-Reichardt method for realizing finite \(l\)-groups over \(\mathbb{Q}\) [Topics in Galois theory. Research Notes in Mathematics. 1. Boston, MA etc.: Jones and Bartlett Publishers (1992; Zbl 0746.12001)], \textit{J.-P. Serre}, pointed out that, if \(l\) is an odd prime number and \(G\) is a finite \(l\)-group of order \(l^n\), then \({\min\;ram}_{\mathbb{Q}}(G)\leq n\). This was then extended by \textit{W.-D. Geyer} and \textit{M. Jarden} [Nagoya Math. J. 150, 13--62 (1998; Zbl 0906.12002)] to the case where \(K\) is a global field such that \(l\neq char(K)\) and \(K\) does not contain a primitive \(l\)-th root of unity. More concretely, they proved that there exists a natural number \(t(K)\) such that \({\min\;ram}_K(G)\leq t(K)+ n\), for every finite \(l\)-group \(G\) of order \(l^n\). In addition, \(t(\mathbb{Q})=0\). The main theorem in the paper under review improves Geyer-Jarden's result when \(K\) is a number field containing no primitive \(l\)-th roots of unity and having no ideal classes of order \(l^2\). In this case, the authors prove that \({\min\;ram}_K(G)\leq t(K) + \sum_{i\geq 1} d(G_i/G_{i+1})\), where \(\{G_i\}\) denotes the lower central series of \(G\) and \(d(H)\) denotes the minimal number of generators of a group \(H\). More generally, they show that the analogous result holds for every finite nilpotent group \(G\) of odd order, under the appropriate hypotheses on \(K\) for each prime number \(l\) dividing the order of \(G\). This generalizes the corresponding result for \(K=\mathbb{Q}\), already proved by the reviewer in [Pac. J. Math. 215, No. 2, 381--391 (2004; Zbl 1064.11072)].