How statement and proof provenance work
The first chip identifies the source of the statement or construction; the second identifies the source of its local proof or verification.
- Literature-sourced: the exact statement appears in a cited source; only wording and notation differ.
- AI-adapted: a semantically identical restatement of literature-sourced material, modulo indexing, notation, and boundary cases adopted by the library.
- AI-generated: a genuinely novel statement formulated by AI, with no source for the claim itself.
These labels describe origin, not correctness: citations and verification chips remain separate evidence.
Equivalent characterizations of a finite Galois extension
Statement
Let be a finite extension and put . The following conditions are equivalent:
- is Galois, that is, normal and separable.
- is the splitting field over of a separable polynomial.
- .
- .
In particular, a finite extension is Galois if and only if it is the splitting field of a separable polynomial.
Facts & Assumptions
Given: A finite extension and ; splitting fields as in Polynomials that split and splitting fields of a polynomial or a family of polynomials; the facts that endomorphisms of a splitting field permute its roots (Every -endomorphism of a splitting field permutes the distinct roots and is an automorphism), is separable exactly when (A finite extension is separable if and only if ), and finite degrees multiply in towers (Tower law for finite extensions: ); the separable degree is the number of -embeddings of into an algebraic closure of (The separable degree as a count of embeddings into an algebraic closure).
If is a finite group of automorphisms of a field , then and (Artin's fixed-field theorem: and ).
If is normal and , then is the splitting field of the product of the minimal polynomials of the generators; for the product is and (A normal extension generated by finitely many elements is the splitting field of the product of their minimal polynomials).
If is algebraic and for a set of elements separable over , then is separable (An algebraic extension generated by separable elements is separable).
For every field extension composition makes a group, and if is finite then ; in particular the relative automorphism group is finite ( is a group and ).
Proof
For the implication from condition 1 to condition 2, choose a finite generating family for . By [L2], normality makes the splitting field of the product of their distinct minimal polynomials; separability makes each factor separable, so their distinct product is separable. If , the empty product has splitting field .
For the implication from condition 2 to condition 3, let be the splitting field of the separable . Then is generated over by the roots of , and the minimal polynomial of each root divides and therefore has no repeated root, so every generator is separable over ; by [L3], is separable and the full-degree criterion in the Given gives . Every -embedding of into an algebraic closure permutes the roots of and hence maps onto itself, so the embeddings are precisely the elements of and .
For the implication from condition 3 to condition 4, [L1] gives . Since , the tower law forces , hence .
For the implication from condition 4 to condition 1, [L4] makes finite, so [L1] applies to and gives ; with this reads . The bound in [L4] then gives , so and the full-degree criterion in the Given makes separable. For , the orbit polynomial has distinct roots in and coefficients fixed by , hence in . The minimal polynomial of divides , while every orbit element is one of its roots; separability makes divide that minimal polynomial. They are therefore equal, so every minimal polynomial over splits in and is normal. This also covers and the degree-one extension.
Depends on
Finite Galois extensions and
Artin's fixed-field theorem: and
A normal extension generated by finitely many elements is the splitting field of the product of their minimal polynomials
Polynomials that split and splitting fields of a polynomial or a family of polynomials
Every -endomorphism of a splitting field permutes the distinct roots and is an automorphism
A finite extension is separable if and only if
An algebraic extension generated by separable elements is separable
Tower law for finite extensions:
is a group and
The separable degree as a count of embeddings into an algebraic closure