A note on Thaine's circular units (Q917594)

\textit{F. Thaine} [Ann. Math., II. Ser. 128, No.1, 1-18 (1988; Zbl 0665.12003)] defined the circular units of an abelian field K (with conductor m) by means of the polynomials \[ f_ j(X)=\pm \prod^{j}_{i=1}\prod^{m-1}_{k=1}(X^ i-\zeta^ k_ m)^{a_{i,k}}\in K[X], \] where \(\zeta_ m\) is a primitive mth root of 1 and \(a_{i,k}\) are rational integers. Thaine's group G of circular units in fact consists of all those numbers \(f_ j(1)\), for \(j\geq 1\), which are units. The present author proves that G equals the group of circular units introduced by \textit{W. Sinnott} [Invent. Math. 62, 181-234 (1980; Zbl 0465.12001)]. He also shows that one obtains the whole group G by taking the polynomials \(f_ j(X)\) for \(j=1\) only.