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Concept
Conductor (class field theory)
Summary
In algebraic number theory, the conductor of a finite abelian extension of local or global fields provides a quantitative measure of the ramification in the extension. The definition of the conductor is related to the Artin map.
Let L/K be a finite abelian extension of non-archimedean local fields. The conductor of L/K, denoted , is the smallest non-negative integer n such that the higher unit group
is contained in NL/K(L×), where NL/K is field norm map and is the maximal ideal of K. Equivalently, n is the smallest integer such that the local Artin map is trivial on . Sometimes, the conductor is defined as where n is as above.
The conductor of an extension measures the ramification. Qualitatively, the extension is unramified if, and only if, the conductor is zero, and it is tamely ramified if, and only if, the conductor is 1. More precisely, the conductor computes the non-triviality of higher ramification groups: if s is the largest integer for which the "lower numbering" higher ramification group Gs is non-trivial, then , where ηL/K is the function that translates from "lower numbering" to "upper numbering" of higher ramification groups.
The conductor of L/K is also related to the Artin conductors of characters of the Galois group Gal(L/K). Specifically,
where χ varies over all multiplicative complex characters of Gal(L/K), is the Artin conductor of χ, and lcm is the least common multiple.
The conductor can be defined in the same way for L/K a not necessarily abelian finite Galois extension of local fields. However, it only depends on Lab/K, the maximal abelian extension of K in L, because of the "norm limitation theorem", which states that, in this situation,
Additionally, the conductor can be defined when L and K are allowed to be slightly more general than local, namely if they are complete valued fields with quasi-finite residue field.
Mostly for the sake of global conductors, the conductor of the trivial extension R/R is defined to be 0, and the conductor of the extension C/R is defined to be 1.
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