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[parent] Galois group of a biquadratic extension (Theorem)

This article proves that biquadratic extensions correspond precisely to Galois extensions with Galois group isomorphic to the Klein $4$ group $V_4$ (at least if the characteristic of the base field is not $2$ . More precisely,

Theorem 1   Let $F$ be a field of characteristic $\neq 2$ and $K$ a finite extension of $F$ Then the following are equivalent:
  1. $K=F(\sqrt{D_1},\sqrt{D_2})$ for some $D_1,D_2\in F$ such that none of $D_1, D_2$ or $D_1D_2$ is a square in $F$
  2. $K$ is a Galois extension of $F$ with $\Gal(K/F)\cong V_4$

Proof. Suppose first that condition (1) holds. Then $[F(\sqrt{D_1}):F]=[F(\sqrt{D_2}):F]=2$ since neither $D_1$ nor $D_2$ is a square in $F$ Now obviously $$[K:F]=[F(\sqrt{D_1},\sqrt{D_2}):F(\sqrt{D_1})][F(\sqrt{D_1}):F]\leq 4$$ and so $[K:F(\sqrt{D_1})]\leq 2$ If $K=F(\sqrt{D_1})$ then $\sqrt{D_2}\in F(\sqrt{D_1})$ so $\sqrt{D_2}=a+b\sqrt{D_1}$ and $D_2=a^2+b^2D_1+2ab\sqrt{D_1}$ Thus $a=0$ or $b=0$ If $b=0$ then $D_2$ is a square. If $a=0$ then $D_1D_2=b^2D_1^2$ is a square. In any case, this is a contradiction. Thus $K$ is a quadratic extension of $F(\sqrt{D_1})$ So $[K:F]=4$ But $K$ is the splitting field for $(x^2-D_1)(x^2-D_2)$ since the splitting field must contain both square roots, and the polynomial obviously splits in $K$ so $G=\Gal(K/F)$ has four elements

$id$ $\sigma:\begin{cases}\sqrt{D_1}\mapsto -\sqrt{D_1}\\\sqrt{D_2}\mapsto \sqrt{D_2}\end{cases}$ $\tau:\begin{cases}\sqrt{D_1}\mapsto \sqrt{D_1}\\\sqrt{D_2}\mapsto -\sqrt{D_2}\end{cases}$ $\sigma\tau:\begin{cases}\sqrt{D_1}\mapsto -\sqrt{D_1}\\\sqrt{D_2}\mapsto -\sqrt{D_2}\end{cases}$
and is thus isomorphic to $V_4$

Now assume that condition (2) holds. Since $\Gal(K/F)\cong V_4$ there must be three intermediate subfields $E_1, E_2, E_3$ between $F$ and $K$ of degree $2$ over $F$ corresponding to the three subgroups of $V_4$ of order $2$ Thus each of these is a quadratic extension. Suppose $E_1=F(\sqrt{D_1}), E_2=F(\sqrt{D_2})$ where neither $D_1$ nor $D_2$ is a square in $F$ The fact that $E_1\neq E_2$ implies as above that $D_1D_2$ is also not a square in $F$ (in fact $E_3=F(\sqrt{D_1D_2})$ Thus $E_1E_2\supsetneq E_1, E_2$ and is of degree $4$ over $F$ so $K=E_1E_2 =F(\sqrt{D_1},\sqrt{D_2})$




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Cross-references: implies, order, subgroups, degree, subfields, polynomial, square roots, contain, splitting field, quadratic extension, contradiction, proof, square, the following are equivalent, finite extension, field, base field, characteristic, isomorphic, Galois group, Galois extensions, biquadratic extensions
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This is version 2 of Galois group of a biquadratic extension, born on 2008-01-11, modified 2008-04-22.
Object id is 10184, canonical name is GaloisGroupOfABiquadraticExtension.
Accessed 794 times total.

Classification:
AMS MSC11R16 (Number theory :: Algebraic number theory: global fields :: Cubic and quartic extensions)

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