General Topology – Proving Local Compactness of Qp

algebraic-number-theorygeneral-topologynumber theoryp-adic-number-theorytopological-groups

Suppose $\mathbb{Q_p} $ is the fraction field of $\mathbb{Z_p}$ ($p$-adic integers) i.e.

$$\mathbb{Q_p} = \left\lbrace\frac{x}{y} \space \bigg{|} \space x,y \in \mathbb{Z_p} , y\neq 0 \right\rbrace$$

Now with respect to the topology defined by $d(x,y) = e^{-v_p(x-y)}$ ($v_p$ is the $p$-adic valuation) , we need to show that $\mathbb{Q_p} $ is locally compact.

Any suggestions?

Best Answer

Every point has a fundamental system of neighborhoods given by $\{x+p^n\Bbb Z_p\}_{n\in\Bbb N}$ which are compact.

In essence this is just the fact that $p^n\Bbb Z_p$ is a fundamental system of compact neighborhoods of $0$: since we are in a vector space--really a topological group is enough, but not everyone is familiar with structures of that generality--we can translate these sets anywhere to form a compact (and open) neighborhood of any point.

If you have any trouble seeing this recall that open balls generate the topology and all open balls are of the form $x+p^n\Bbb Z_p$ for some $n\in\Bbb Z$.

Related Question