[Math] Elementary proof of a special case of Chebotarev’s density theorem

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A special case of Cheboratev's density theorem states that, for $K/\mathbb{Q}$ a Galois number field of degree $n$, then the rational primes that split completely in $K$ have density $1/n$.

Is there an elementary proof of this fact?

Actually I'm asking this only to apply it to $K=\mathbb{Q}(\zeta_n)$ and get that the density is nonzero, and there is an elementary proof of this. However I'm also interested in the more general result.

Best Answer

There does exist an elementary proof, and is given in many books on algebraic number theory. I think it is in Lang's book. I reproduce the proof below.

Consider $ \zeta _K(s)=\prod _{\mathfrak p}(1-\frac{1}{(N\mathfrak p)^{s}})^{-1}$ where $\mathfrak p$ runs over all prime ideals in the ring of integers in $K$. Therefore,

$$\log (\zeta _K(s))=\sum _{\mathfrak p}\sum _ {m\geq 1} \frac{1}{m(N\mathfrak p)^{ms}}$$

Since $\zeta _K(s)=\frac{1}{s-1}(a_0+a_1(s-1)+\cdots)$ with $a_0\neq 0$, it follows that $\frac{\log (\zeta _K(s))}{\log \frac{1}{s-1}}$ tends to $1$ as $s$ tends to $1$ from the right. On the other hand, in this limit, only the term $m=1$ and $\mathfrak p$ of degree one over $\mathbb Q$ need be considered. Hence we get $$1= \lim _{s \rightarrow 1} \frac{\sum _{\mathfrak p} \frac{1}{(N\mathfrak p) ^s}}{\log \frac{1}{s-1}}.$$ Now, degree $1$ primes $\mathfrak p$ lie over rational primes $p$ which split completely in $K$, and over each $p$, there are $n=\deg(K/{\mathbb Q})$ primes $\mathfrak p$ of degree $1$. Hence we get

$$1=\lim _{s\rightarrow 1} n\left( \frac{\sum _p \frac{1}{p^s}}{\log \frac{1}{s-1}}\right)$$ where the sum is over primes $p$ which split completely. This gives what you want.