Quadratic field extensions

One of the basic examples of norms comes from quadratic field extensions ${\displaystyle \mathbb {Q} ({\sqrt {a}})/\mathbb {Q} }$ where ${\displaystyle a}$ is a square-free integer.

Then, the multiplication map by ${\displaystyle {\sqrt {a}}}$ on an element ${\displaystyle x+y\cdot {\sqrt {a}}}$ is

${\displaystyle {\sqrt {a}}\cdot (x+y\cdot {\sqrt {a}})=y\cdot a+x\cdot {\sqrt {a}}.}$

The element ${\displaystyle x+y\cdot {\sqrt {a}}}$ can be represented by the vector

${\displaystyle {\begin{bmatrix}x\\y\end{bmatrix}},}$

since there is a direct sum decomposition ${\displaystyle \mathbb {Q} ({\sqrt {a}})=\mathbb {Q} \oplus \mathbb {Q} \cdot {\sqrt {a}}}$ as a ${\displaystyle \mathbb {Q} }$-vector space.

The matrix of ${\displaystyle m_{\sqrt {a}}}$ is then

${\displaystyle m_{\sqrt {a}}={\begin{bmatrix}0&a\\1&0\end{bmatrix}}}$

and the norm is ${\displaystyle N_{\mathbb {Q} ({\sqrt {a}})/\mathbb {Q} }({\sqrt {a}})=-a}$, since it is the determinant of this matrix.

p-th root field extensions

Another easy class of examples comes from field extensions of the form ${\displaystyle \mathbb {Q} ({\sqrt[{p}]{a}})/\mathbb {Q} }$ where the prime factorization of ${\displaystyle a\in \mathbb {Q} }$ contains no ${\displaystyle p}$-th powers, for ${\displaystyle p}$ a fixed odd prime.

The multiplication map by ${\displaystyle {\sqrt[{p}]{a}}}$ of an element is

${\displaystyle {\begin{aligned}m_{\sqrt[{p}]{a}}(x)&={\sqrt[{p}]{a}}\cdot (a_{0}+a_{1}{\sqrt[{p}]{a}}+a_{2}{\sqrt[{p}]{a^{2}}}+\cdots +a_{p-1}{\sqrt[{p}]{a^{p-1}}})\\&=a_{0}{\sqrt[{p}]{a}}+a_{1}{\sqrt[{p}]{a^{2}}}+a_{2}{\sqrt[{p}]{a^{3}}}+\cdots +a_{p-1}a\end{aligned}}}$

giving the matrix

${\displaystyle {\begin{bmatrix}0&0&\cdots &0&a\\1&0&\cdots &0&0\\0&1&\cdots &0&0\\\vdots &\vdots &\ddots &\vdots &\vdots \\0&0&\cdots &1&0\end{bmatrix}}}$

The determinant gives the norm

${\displaystyle N_{\mathbb {Q} ({\sqrt[{p}]{a}})/\mathbb {Q} }({\sqrt[{p}]{a}})=(-1)^{p-1}a=a.}$

Complex numbers over the reals

The field norm from the complex numbers to the real numbers sends

x + iy

to

x² + y²,

because the Galois group of ${\displaystyle \mathbb {C} }$ over ${\displaystyle \mathbb {R} }$ has two elements,

• the identity element and
• complex conjugation,

and taking the product yields (x + iy)(x − iy) = x² + y².

Finite fields

Let L = GF(qⁿ) be a finite extension of a finite field K = GF(q).

Since L/K is a Galois extension, if α is in L, then the norm of α is the product of all the Galois conjugates of α, i.e.^[3]

${\displaystyle \operatorname {N} _{L/K}(\alpha )=\alpha \cdot \alpha ^{q}\cdot \alpha ^{q^{2}}\cdots \alpha ^{q^{n-1}}=\alpha ^{(q^{n}-1)/(q-1)}.}$

In this setting we have the additional properties,^[4]

• ${\displaystyle \forall \alpha \in L,\quad \operatorname {N} _{L/K}(\alpha ^{q})=\operatorname {N} _{L/K}(\alpha )}$
• ${\displaystyle \forall a\in K,\quad \operatorname {N} _{L/K}(a)=a^{n}.}$

Group homomorphism

The norm N_L/K : L* → K* is a group homomorphism from the multiplicative group of L to the multiplicative group of K, that is

${\displaystyle \operatorname {N} _{L/K}(\alpha \beta )=\operatorname {N} _{L/K}(\alpha )\operatorname {N} _{L/K}(\beta ){\text{ for all }}\alpha ,\beta \in L^{*}.}$

Furthermore, if a in K:

${\displaystyle \operatorname {N} _{L/K}(a\alpha )=a^{[L:K]}\operatorname {N} _{L/K}(\alpha ){\text{ for all }}\alpha \in L.}$

If a ∈ K then ${\displaystyle \operatorname {N} _{L/K}(a)=a^{[L:K]}.}$

Composition with field extensions

Additionally, the norm behaves well in towers of fields:

if M is a finite extension of L, then the norm from M to K is just the composition of the norm from M to L with the norm from L to K, i.e.

${\displaystyle \operatorname {N} _{M/K}=\operatorname {N} _{L/K}\circ \operatorname {N} _{M/L}.}$

Reduction of the norm

The norm of an element in an arbitrary field extension can be reduced to an easier computation if the degree of the field extension is already known. This is

${\displaystyle N_{L/K}(\alpha )=N_{K(\alpha )/K}(\alpha )^{[L:K(\alpha )]}}$^[6]

For example, for ${\displaystyle \alpha ={\sqrt {2}}}$ in the field extension ${\displaystyle L=\mathbb {Q} ({\sqrt {2}},\zeta _{3}),K=\mathbb {Q} }$, the norm of ${\displaystyle \alpha }$ is

${\displaystyle {\begin{aligned}N_{\mathbb {Q} ({\sqrt {2}},\zeta _{3})/\mathbb {Q} }({\sqrt {2}})&=N_{\mathbb {Q} ({\sqrt {2}})/\mathbb {Q} }({\sqrt {2}})^{[\mathbb {Q} ({\sqrt {2}},\zeta _{3}):\mathbb {Q} ({\sqrt {2}})]}\\&=(-2)^{2}\\&=4\end{aligned}}}$

since the degree of the field extension ${\displaystyle L/K(\alpha )}$ is ${\displaystyle 2}$.

Detection of units

For ${\displaystyle {\mathcal {O}}_{K}}$ the ring of integers of an algebraic number field ${\displaystyle K}$, an element ${\displaystyle \alpha \in {\mathcal {O}}_{K}}$ is a unit if and only if ${\displaystyle N_{K/\mathbb {Q} }(\alpha )=\pm 1}$.

For instance

${\displaystyle N_{\mathbb {Q} (\zeta _{3})/\mathbb {Q} }(\zeta _{3})=1}$

where

${\displaystyle \zeta _{3}^{3}=1}$.

Thus, any number field ${\displaystyle K}$ whose ring of integers ${\displaystyle {\mathcal {O}}_{K}}$ contains ${\displaystyle \zeta _{3}}$ has it as a unit.