Galois extension

In mathematics, a Galois extension is an algebraic field extension E/F satisfying certain conditions (described below); one also says that the extension is Galois. The significance of being a Galois extension is that the extension has a Galois group and obeys the fundamental theorem of Galois theory.

The definition is as follows. An algebraic field extension E/F is Galois if it is normal and separable. Equivalently, the extension E/F is Galois if and only if it is algebraic, and the field fixed by the automorphism group Aut(E/F) is precisely the base field F. (See the article Galois group for definitions of some of these terms and some examples.)

A result of Emil Artin allows one to construct Galois extensions as follows: If E is a given field, and G is a finite group of automorphisms of E, then E/F is a Galois extension, where F is the fixed field of G.

Characterization of Galois extensions

An important theorem of Emil Artin states that for a finite extension E/F, each of the following statements is equivalent to the statement that E/F is Galois:

• E/F is a normal extension and a separable extension.
• E is a splitting field of a separable polynomial with coefficients in F.
• [E:F] = |Aut(E/F)|; that is, the degree of the field extension is equal to the order of the automorphism group of E/F.

Examples

Adjoining to the rational number field the square root of 2 gives a Galois extension, while adjoining the cube root of 2 gives a non-Galois extension. Both these extensions are separable, because they have characteristic zero. The first of them is the splitting field of X² − 2; the second has normal closure that includes the complex cube roots of unity, and so is not a splitting field. In fact, it has no automorphism other than the identity, because it is contained in the real numbers and X³ − 2 has just one real root.

An algebraic closure $\bar K$ of an arbitrary field K is Galois over K if and only if K is a perfect field.

References

• Lang, Serge (2002), Algebra, Graduate Texts in Mathematics, 211 (Revised third ed.), New York: Springer-Verlag, ISBN 978-0-387-95385-4, MR1878556