English

On the descending central sequence of absolute Galois groups

Number Theory 2011-05-31 v3 K-Theory and Homology

Abstract

Let pp be an odd prime number and FF a field containing a primitive ppth root of unity. We prove a new restriction on the group-theoretic structure of the absolute Galois group GFG_F of FF. Namely, the third subgroup GF(3)G_F^{(3)} in the descending pp-central sequence of GFG_F is the intersection of all open normal subgroups NN such that GF/NG_F/N is 1, Z/p2\mathbb{Z}/p^2, or the modular group Mp3M_{p^3} of order p3p^3.

Keywords

Cite

@article{arxiv.0809.2166,
  title  = {On the descending central sequence of absolute Galois groups},
  author = {Ido Efrat and Jan Minac},
  journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:0809.2166},
  year   = {2011}
}

Comments

We implemented the referee's comments. The paper will appear in The American Journal of Mathematics

R2 v1 2026-06-21T11:19:38.453Z