English

Galois Extensions via Finiteness of Orbits

Number Theory 2026-06-30 v1

Abstract

We present an orbit--theoretic reformulation of Galois theory based on the natural action of automorphism groups on fields. Given a field E\mathbf{E} and a subgroup HH of the automorphism group Aut(E)\mathrm{Aut}(\mathbf{E}), we show that algebraic properties of the extension E/EH\mathbf{E}/\mathbf{E}^H, where EH\mathbf{E}^H denotes the fixed field of HH, are encoded in the HH-orbits arising from the action of HH on E\mathbf{E}. An element αE\alpha \in \mathbf{E} is algebraic over EH\mathbf{E}^H if and only if its HH--orbit is finite. In that case, its minimal polynomial can be explicitly constructed as the product of linear factors over its orbit --a construction that also ensures separability. At the level of field extensions, we prove that E/EH\mathbf{E}/\mathbf{E}^H is Galois if and only if all HH--orbits have finite length, and that E/EH\mathbf{E}/\mathbf{E}^H is a finite Galois extension if and only if the lengths of the HH--orbits are bounded above. This provides a unified orbit--theoretic characterization of algebraicity, separability, normality, and degree. Artin's Lemma is recovered as a direct consequence of this framework. Finally, we show that for simple extensions, the fixed field under a subgroup HH of Aut(F(α)/F)\mathrm{Aut}(\mathbf{F}(\alpha)/\mathbf{F}) can be described explicitly by evaluating elementary symmetric polynomials on the HH--orbit of α\alpha, provided this orbit is finite. This leads to an effective method for computing fixed fields directly from orbit data. A classical example is included to illustrate the approach.

Keywords

Cite

@article{arxiv.2606.31900,
  title  = {Galois Extensions via Finiteness of Orbits},
  author = {Nikolaos Marmaridis},
  journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:2606.31900},
  year   = {2026}
}

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15 pages