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A Golod-Shafarevich Equality and p-Tower Groups

Let K be a quadratic imaginary number field, let Kp^(infinity) the top of its p-class field tower for p an odd prime, and let G=Gal(Kp^(infinity)/K). It is known, due to a tremendous collection of work ranging from the principal results of class field theory to the famous Golod-Shafarevich inequality, that G is finite if the p-rank of the class group of K is 0 or 1, and is infinite if this rank is at least 3. This leaves the rank 2 case as the only remaining unsolved case. In this case, while finiteness is still a mystery, much is still known about G: It is a 2-generated, 2-related pro-p-group equipped with an involution that acts as the inverse modulo commutators, and is of one of three possible Zassenhaus types (defined in the paper). If such a group is finite, we will call it an interesting p-tower group. We further the knowledge on such groups by showing that one particular Zassenhaus type can occur as an interesting p-tower group only if the group has order at least p^24 (Proposition 8.1), and by proving a succinct cohomological condition (Proposition 4.7) for a p-tower group to be infinite. More generally, we prove a Golod-Shafarevich equality (Theorem 5.2), refining the famous Golod-Shafarevich inequality, and obtaining as a corollary a strict strengthening of previous Golod-Shafarevich inequalities (Corollary 5.5). Of interest is that this equality applies not only to finite p-groups but also to p-adic analytic pro-p-groups, a class of groups of particular relevance due to their prominent appearance in the Fontaine-Mazur conjecture. This refined version admits as a consequence that the sizes of the first few modular dimension subgroups of an interesting p-tower group G are completely determined by p and its Zassenhaus type, and we compute these sizes. As another application, we prove a new formula (Corollary 5.3) for the Fp-dimensions of the successive quotients of dimension subgroups of free pro-p-groups.

Identiferoai:union.ndltd.org:arizona.edu/oai:arizona.openrepository.com:10150/194026
Date January 2008
CreatorsMcLeman, Cameron William
ContributorsMcCallum, William G
PublisherThe University of Arizona.
Source SetsUniversity of Arizona
LanguageEnglish
Detected LanguageEnglish
Typetext, Electronic Dissertation
RightsCopyright © is held by the author. Digital access to this material is made possible by the University Libraries, University of Arizona. Further transmission, reproduction or presentation (such as public display or performance) of protected items is prohibited except with permission of the author.

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