Fine Structure of Class Groups of Prime Power Cyclotomic Fields and the Kervaire-Murthy Conjectures

Abstract: In 1977 Kervaire and Murthy presented three conjectures regarding

K_{0} m a t h b b Z C_{p^{n}}

, where

C_{p^{n}}

is the cyclic group of order

p^{n}

and

p

is a semi-regular prime. The Mayer-Vietoris exact sequence provides the following short exact sequence

0 o V_n o pic (mathbb{Z} C_{p^n}) o cl mathbb{Q} (zeta_{n-1}) imes pic (mathbb{Z} C_{p^{n-1}}) o 0

where

z e t a_{n - 1}

is a primitive

p^{n}

-th root of unity. The group

V_{n}

that injects into

p i c m a t h b b Z C_{p^{n}} c o n g i l d e K_{0} m a t h b b Z C_{p^{n}}

, is a canonical quotient of an in some sense simpler group

m a t h c a l V_{n}

. Both groups split in a ``positive and ``negative part. While

V_{n}^{-}

is well understood there is still no complete information on

V_{n}^{+}

. Kervaire and Murthy showed that

and

V_{n}

are tightly connected to class groups of cyclotomic fields. They conjectured that

V_{n}^{+} c o n g (m a t h b b Z / p^{n} m a t h b b Z)^{r (p)}

, where

r (p)

is the index of regularity of the prime

p

and that

m a t h c a l V_{n}^{+} c o n g V_{n}^{+}

, and moreover,

c h a r m a t h c a l V_{n}^{+} c o n g c l^{(p)} m a t h b b Q (z e t a_{n - 1})

, the

p

-part of the class group. In the present paper we calculate

m a t h c a l V_{n}^{+}

and prove that

c h a r m a t h c a l V_{n}^{+} c o n g c l^{(p)} m a t h b b Q (z e t a_{n - 1})

for all semi-regular primes which also gives us the structure of

c l^{(p)} m a t h b b Q (z_{n - 1})

as an abelian group. Moreover we conclude that all three Kervaire and Murthy conjectures hold is equivalent to that the Iwasawa invariant

l a m b d a

equals

r (p)

and that this also implies that the Iwasawa invariant

u

equals

r (p)

.

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