A remark on the class-number of the maximal real subfield of a cyclotomic field (Q916706)

Let \(h^+(m)\) be the class number of the maximal real subfield \({\mathbb{Q}}(\zeta_ m+\zeta_ m^{-1})\) of the m-th cyclotomic field. In this paper it is shown that whenever both p and (p-1)/2 are primes and when \(h^+(p)<p\), then \(h^+(p)=1\). This theorem is an easy consequence of the observation that for cyclic extensions K/\({\mathbb{Q}}\) of degree q and for primes \(r\neq q\) we have \(r| h(K)\Rightarrow r^ f| h(K)\), where f is the multiplicative order of r mod q.