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Hilbert's irreducibility theorem

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In number theory, Hilbert's irreducibility theorem, conceived by David Hilbert in 1892, states that every finite set of irreducible polynomials in a finite number of variables and having rational number coefficients admit a common specialization of a proper subset of the variables to rational numbers such that all the polynomials remain irreducible. This theorem is a prominent theorem in number theory.

Formulation of the theorem

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Hilbert's irreducibility theorem. Let

be irreducible polynomials in the ring

Then there exists an r-tuple of rational numbers (a1, ..., ar) such that

are irreducible in the ring

Remarks.

  • It follows from the theorem that there are infinitely many r-tuples. In fact the set of all irreducible specializations, called Hilbert set, is large in many senses. For example, this set is Zariski dense in
  • There are always (infinitely many) integer specializations, i.e., the assertion of the theorem holds even if we demand (a1, ..., ar) to be integers.
  • There are many Hilbertian fields, i.e., fields satisfying Hilbert's irreducibility theorem. For example, number fields are Hilbertian.[1]
  • The irreducible specialization property stated in the theorem is the most general. There are many reductions, e.g., it suffices to take in the definition. A result of Bary-Soroker shows that for a field K to be Hilbertian it suffices to consider the case of and absolutely irreducible, that is, irreducible in the ring Kalg[X,Y], where Kalg is the algebraic closure of K.

Applications

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Hilbert's irreducibility theorem has numerous applications in number theory and algebra. For example:

  • The inverse Galois problem, Hilbert's original motivation. The theorem almost immediately implies that if a finite group G can be realized as the Galois group of a Galois extension N of
then it can be specialized to a Galois extension N0 of the rational numbers with G as its Galois group.[2] (To see this, choose a monic irreducible polynomial f(X1, ..., Xn, Y) whose root generates N over E. If f(a1, ..., an, Y) is irreducible for some ai, then a root of it will generate the asserted N0.)
  • Construction of elliptic curves with large rank.[2]
  • If a polynomial is a perfect square for all large integer values of x, then g(x) is the square of a polynomial in This follows from Hilbert's irreducibility theorem with and
(More elementary proofs exist.) The same result is true when "square" is replaced by "cube", "fourth power", etc.

Generalizations

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It has been reformulated and generalized extensively, by using the language of algebraic geometry. See thin set (Serre).

References

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  • D. Hilbert, "Uber die Irreducibilitat ganzer rationaler Functionen mit ganzzahligen Coefficienten", J. reine angew. Math. 110 (1892) 104–129.
  1. ^ Lang (1997) p.41
  2. ^ a b Lang (1997) p.42
  • Lang, Serge (1997). Survey of Diophantine Geometry. Springer-Verlag. ISBN 3-540-61223-8. Zbl 0869.11051.
  • J. P. Serre, Lectures on The Mordell-Weil Theorem, Vieweg, 1989.
  • M. D. Fried and M. Jarden, Field Arithmetic, Springer-Verlag, Berlin, 2005.
  • H. Völklein, Groups as Galois Groups, Cambridge University Press, 1996.
  • G. Malle and B. H. Matzat, Inverse Galois Theory, Springer, 1999.