Saturday, 12 July 2008

gr.group theory - Orders of field automorphisms of algebraic complex numbers

This amounts to the Artin-Schreier theorem, which has come up several times already on MO (c.f. Examples of algebraic closures of finite index):



if K/F is a field extension with K algebraically closed and [K:F]<infty, then
[K:F]=1 or 2, and in the latter case, F is real-closed.



Thus the answer here is that n can be 1, 2 or infty, and all possibilities occur: the field of real algebraic numbers gives an index 2 subfield of overlinemathbbQ.



(Also, just to be sure, there are elements of infinite order! E.g., if not then every element would have order 1 or 2, so the absolute Galois group would be abelian, and thus every finite Galois group over mathbbQ would be abelian, and this is certainly not the case.)

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