Issue with orders in number fields

[Justin C. Walker]

Hi, all,

I think I understand what’s going wrong, but I don’t understand how to fix the following problem:

sage: K.<a>=NumberField(x^2-10)

sage: OK=K.maximal_order()

sage: O=ZZ[a]

sage: a in OK

True

sage: a in K

True

sage: a in O

True

sage: O.index_in(OK)

---------------------------------------------------------------------------

ValueError                                Traceback (most recent call last)

...Blooie

ValueError: other must have the same ambient number field as self.

Have we just painted ourselves into a (figurative) corner?

Pointers?  Suggestions?

Thanks for any help.

Justin

--

Justin C. Walker, Curmudgeon at Large

Institute for the Absorption of Federal Funds

-----------

While creating wives, God promised men

that good and obedient wives would be

found in all corners of the world.

Then He made the earth round.

--

[Nils Bruin]

Hi Justin,

You can see the problem from:

sage: O.ambient()
Number Field in a0 with defining polynomial x^2 - 10 with a0 = a

As you can see, the ambient field of O is not identical to K (which is the ambient field of OK). It is a field with an *embedding* into K, though, and it happens to be an isomorphism here.

Mathematically, I think sage is right to have some reservation here. If we do

sage: K.<a>=NumberField(x^4-2)
sage: OK=K.ring_of_integers()
sage: b=a^2
sage: O=ZZ[b]
sage: O.ambient()
Number Field in a0 with defining polynomial x^2 - 2 with a0 = a^2

I think you see the problem: the field of fractions of ZZ[b] does not need to be (and in the above example isn't) equal to the parent of b.

In this case, O wouldn't have a finite index in OK.

For programmatic consistency, we generally avoid programming in "shortcuts" based on specific values: while ZZ[a] happens to be an order in the parent K of a if a generates it over QQ, we'd generally *not* special case that to then create ZZ[a] as an order in K, but still create this separate field with generator a0.

It's perhaps inconvenient and pedantic, but I would think this one may even still be on the instructive side for having to explain to a student.

[David Roe]

If you want the order generated by a, you can do

sage: K.<a>=NumberField(x^2-10)
sage: OK=K.maximal_order()

sage: O = K.order(a)
sage: O.index_in(OK)
1

Note that this correctly fails in Nils' example:

sage: K.order(a^2)

...

ValueError: the rank of the span of gens is wrong

David

--
You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "sage-devel" group.
To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to sage-devel+...@googlegroups.com.
To view this discussion on the web visit https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/sage-devel/91b7f3ea-fd89-446e-8a26-3e474414d32cn%40googlegroups.com.

[Nils Bruin]

Hm, interesting. The current code for ZZ.__getitem__ (i.e., ZZ[a]) does this:

        if isinstance(x, NumberFieldElement_base):
            K, _ = parent(x).subfield(x)
            return K.order(K.gen())

However, this functionality is also available in K.order:

sage: K.order(a,allow_subfield=True)
Order in Number Field in a with defining polynomial x^4 - 2
sage: K.order(a^2,allow_subfield=True)
Order in Number Field in beta with defining polynomial x^2 - 2*x - 1 with beta = -a^2 + 1

so the code could actually just be:

 

     if isinstance(x, NumberFieldElement_base):
        return K.order(x,allow_subfield=True)

and then Justin's problem would be solved. It's more economical in that no (isomorphic) copy of the field is created. It looks like it does cause different problems, though: it looks like K.order wants a standardised basis, so:

 sage: K.order(a+1).gens()
(1, a, a^2, a^3)

sage: K.order(a^2+a+1).gens()
(1, 7*a^3 + a, 2*a^3 + a^2, 9*a^3)

So K.order(a) does not need to return an order with a power basis on a. Perhaps that's the deeper reason why ZZ[a] does its trickery: certainly one would expect an order with power basis on a from that construction.