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Concept
Ramification (mathematics)
Summary
In geometry, ramification is 'branching out', in the way that the square root function, for complex numbers, can be seen to have two branches differing in sign. The term is also used from the opposite perspective (branches coming together) as when a covering map degenerates at a point of a space, with some collapsing of the fibers of the mapping.
Branch point
In complex analysis, the basic model can be taken as the z → zn mapping in the complex plane, near z = 0. This is the standard local picture in Riemann surface theory, of ramification of order n. It occurs for example in the Riemann–Hurwitz formula for the effect of mappings on the genus.
In a covering map the Euler–Poincaré characteristic should multiply by the number of sheets; ramification can therefore be detected by some dropping from that. The z → zn mapping shows this as a local pattern: if we exclude 0, looking at 0 < |z| < 1 say, we have (from the homotopy point of view) the circle mapped to itself by the n-th power map (Euler–Poincaré characteristic 0), but with the whole disk the Euler–Poincaré characteristic is 1, n – 1 being the 'lost' points as the n sheets come together at z = 0.
In geometric terms, ramification is something that happens in codimension two (like knot theory, and monodromy); since real codimension two is complex codimension one, the local complex example sets the pattern for higher-dimensional complex manifolds. In complex analysis, sheets can't simply fold over along a line (one variable), or codimension one subspace in the general case. The ramification set (branch locus on the base, double point set above) will be two real dimensions lower than the ambient manifold, and so will not separate it into two 'sides', locally―there will be paths that trace round the branch locus, just as in the example. In algebraic geometry over any field, by analogy, it also happens in algebraic codimension one.
Splitting of prime ideals in Galois extensions
Ramification in algebraic number theory means a prime ideal factoring in an extension so as to give some repeated prime ideal factors.
Official source
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Ontological neighbourhood
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In mathematics, an algebraic number field (or simply number field) is an extension field of the field of rational numbers such that the field extension has finite degree (and hence is an algebraic field extension). Thus is a field that contains and has finite dimension when considered as a vector space over . The study of algebraic number fields, and, more generally, of algebraic extensions of the field of rational numbers, is the central topic of algebraic number theory.
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In mathematics, a manifold is a topological space that locally resembles Euclidean space near each point. More precisely, an -dimensional manifold, or -manifold for short, is a topological space with the property that each point has a neighborhood that is homeomorphic to an open subset of -dimensional Euclidean space. One-dimensional manifolds include lines and circles, but not lemniscates. Two-dimensional manifolds are also called surfaces. Examples include the plane, the sphere, and the torus, and also the Klein bottle and real projective plane.
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In algebraic number theory, a quadratic field is an algebraic number field of degree two over , the rational numbers. Every such quadratic field is some where is a (uniquely defined) square-free integer different from and . If , the corresponding quadratic field is called a real quadratic field, and, if , it is called an imaginary quadratic field or a complex quadratic field, corresponding to whether or not it is a subfield of the field of the real numbers.