Are the prime cyclotomic polynomials irreducible over any field where they’re not obviously reducible

galois-extensionsgalois-theoryirreducible-polynomialsroots-of-unity

My question is the following : if $p$ is a prime number, $\Phi_p = \frac{X^p-1}{X-1}$, is $\Phi_p$ irreducible over any field $K$ where it has no root ?

Phrased differently, if $K$ is of characteristic $\neq p$ and has no nontrivial $p$th root of unity, is $\Phi_p$ irreducible over $K$ ?

Note that any $p$th root of unity is primitive as $p$ is prime; so let $K$ be a field of char $\neq p$ with no nontrivial roots of unity: if $\zeta$ is such a root and $L=K(\zeta)$, then $L$ is the decomposition field of $\Phi_p$ over $K$.

Its Galois group is generated by $\zeta \mapsto \zeta^k$ for some $k$, so the question is linked to subgroups of $(\mathbb{Z/pZ})^\times$. The question reduces to : is there a proper subgroup $H$ of $(\mathbb{Z/pZ})^\times$, and a field $K$ of char $\neq p$ with no nontrivial roots of unity such that $\displaystyle\prod_{l\in H}(X-\zeta^l) \in K[X]$ ?

I have tried to inspect the roots/coefficients relations to see what it would yield but I don't seem to get anywhere.

Best Answer

If you choose $K=\mathbb{Q}[\zeta]^H$, it should work, shouldn’t it?

Related Question