Lagmental Vicfred

Valuations Extend with Ramification Index by Vicfred

Last updated: Sun 19 December 2021

An extension valuation rescales the base valuation by the ramification index. The point is to make the formal expression readable enough to audit line by line.

Start locally

Infinite Galois groups carry the Krull topology and become profinite groups. For a discretely valued field \(K\), completions and residue fields add a second layer of arithmetic to extensions \(L/K\).

$$ v_L|_{K^\times}=e\,v_K $$

The first display fixes the mathematical data. I label it \(\mathsf{data}\) mentally, while the next is the \(\mathsf{claim}\); the bridge between them is the displayed \(\Longrightarrow\), not an automatic implication.

$$ v_L(\pi_K)=e,\qquad \pi_K=u\pi_L^e $$

Compute before generalising

The following line is the smallest calculation that still exercises the mechanism. It keeps nested delimiters and the order of operations explicit.

$$ \left|x\right|_L=c^{-v_L(x)},\qquad\left|x\right|_L=\left|x\right|_K^{\,e\log c_L/\log c_K}\quad(x\in K^\times) $$

The global view

What survives the example is not its particular numbers but the relation encoded by the two rows below. That relation is the part worth transporting to a new setting.

$$ \begin{aligned} \mathsf{D}\;&:\quad v_L|_{K^\times}=e\,v_K,\\[5pt] \mathsf{C}\;&:\quad v_L(\pi_K)=e,\qquad \pi_K=u\pi_L^e. \end{aligned} $$

Edge conditions

Subgroups in infinite Galois theory correspond to intermediate fields only after taking closure. Ramification filtrations also depend on the chosen valuation.

$$ \boxed{\begin{gathered} \text{compact conclusion}\\[-2pt] v_L(\pi_K)=e,\qquad \pi_K=u\pi_L^e \end{gathered}} $$

With the dependency made explicit, the same pattern can be recognised safely in nearby problems. A changed hypothesis should now be easy to spot.

This article was posted on Thu 11 November 2021. Facts and circumstances may have changed since publication.
Please contact me before jumping to conclusions if something seems wrong or unclear.