Non-archimedean Local Field Theory
For a non-archimedean local field F (with absolute value denoted by |·|), the following objects are important:
- its ring of integers which is a discrete valuation ring, is the closed unit ball of F, and is compact;
- the units in its ring of integers which forms a group and is the unit sphere of F;
- the unique non-zero prime ideal in its ring of integers which is its open unit ball ;
- a generator ϖ of called a uniformizer of F;
- its residue field which is finite (since it is compact and discrete).
Every non-zero element a of F can be written as a = ϖnu with u a unit, and n a unique integer. The normalized valuation of F is the surjective function v : F → Z ∪ {∞} defined by sending a non-zero a to the unique integer n such that a = ϖnu with u a unit, and by sending 0 to ∞. If q is the cardinality of the residue field, the absolute value on F induced by its structure as a local field is given by
An equivalent definition of a non-archimedean local field is that it is a field that is complete with respect to a discrete valuation and whose residue field is finite.
Read more about this topic: Local Field
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