Gauss’s lemma II
Definition. A polynomial over an integral domain is said to be primitive if its coefficients are not all divisible by any element of other than a unit.
Proposition (Gauss). Let be a unique factorization domain and its field of fractions. If a polynomial is reducible in , then it is reducible in .
Remark. The above statement is often used in its contrapositive form. For an example of this usage, see this entry (http://planetmath.org/AlternativeProofThatSqrt2IsIrrational).
Proof. A primitive polynomial in is by definition divisible by a non invertible constant polynomial, and therefore reducible in (unless it is itself constant). There is therefore nothing to prove unless (which is not constant) is primitive. By assumption there exist non-constant such that . There are elements such that and are in and are primitive (first multiply by a nonzero element of to chase any denominators, then divide by the gcd of the resulting coefficients in ). Then is primitive by Gauss’s lemma I, but is primitive as well, so is a unit of and is a nontrivial decomposition of in . This completes the proof.
Remark. Another result with the same name is Gauss’ lemma on quadratic residues.
From the above proposition and its proof one may infer the
Theorem. If a primitive polynomial of is divisible in , then it splits in into primitive prime factors. These are uniquely determined up to unit factors of .
Title | Gauss’s lemma II |
Canonical name | GausssLemmaII |
Date of creation | 2013-03-22 13:07:52 |
Last modified on | 2013-03-22 13:07:52 |
Owner | bshanks (153) |
Last modified by | bshanks (153) |
Numerical id | 18 |
Author | bshanks (153) |
Entry type | Theorem |
Classification | msc 12E05 |
Synonym | Gauss’ lemma II |
Related topic | GausssLemmaI |
Related topic | EisensteinCriterion |
Related topic | ProofOfEisensteinCriterion |
Related topic | PrimeFactorsOfXn1 |
Related topic | AlternativeProofThatSqrt2IsIrrational |
Defines | primitive polynomial |