The Latimer–MacDuffee theorem is a

theorem In mathematics, a theorem is a statement that has been proved, or can be proved. The ''proof'' of a theorem is a logical argument that uses the inference rules of a deductive system to establish that the theorem is a logical consequence of th ...

abstract algebra In mathematics, more specifically algebra, abstract algebra or modern algebra is the study of algebraic structures. Algebraic structures include groups, rings, fields, modules, vector spaces, lattices, and algebras over a field. The term ''a ...

, a branch of

mathematics Mathematics is an area of knowledge that includes the topics of numbers, formulas and related structures, shapes and the spaces in which they are contained, and quantities and their changes. These topics are represented in modern mathematics ...

. It is named after

Claiborne Latimer Claiborne Green Latimer (1893–1960) was an American mathematician, known for the Latimer–MacDuffee theorem. Career Latimer earned his PhD in 1924 from the University of Chicago under Leonard Dickson with thesis ''Arithmetic of Generalized Quat ...

and

Cyrus Colton MacDuffee Cyrus Colton MacDuffee (June 29, 1895 – August 21, 1961) from Oneida, New York was a professor of mathematics at University of Wisconsin. He wrote a number of influential research papers in abstract algebra. MacDuffee served on the Council of the ...

, who published it in 1933. Significant contributions to its theory were made later by

Olga Taussky-Todd Olga Taussky-Todd (August 30, 1906, Olomouc, Austria-Hungary (present-day Olomouc, Czech Republic) – October 7, 1995, Pasadena, California) was an Austrian and later Czech-American mathematician. She published more than 300 research papers on a ...

.. Let

f

be a monic,

irreducible polynomial In mathematics, an irreducible polynomial is, roughly speaking, a polynomial that cannot be factored into the product of two non-constant polynomials. The property of irreducibility depends on the nature of the coefficients that are accepted ...

of degree

n

. The Latimer–MacDuffee theorem gives a

one-to-one correspondence In mathematics, a bijection, also known as a bijective function, one-to-one correspondence, or invertible function, is a function between the elements of two sets, where each element of one set is paired with exactly one element of the other s ...

between

\mathbb

- similarity classes of

n\times n

matrices Matrix most commonly refers to: * ''The Matrix'' (franchise), an American media franchise ** ''The Matrix'', a 1999 science-fiction action film ** "The Matrix", a fictional setting, a virtual reality environment, within ''The Matrix'' (franchis ...

with

characteristic polynomial In linear algebra, the characteristic polynomial of a square matrix is a polynomial which is invariant under matrix similarity and has the eigenvalues as roots. It has the determinant and the trace of the matrix among its coefficients. The chara ...

f

and the

ideal class In number theory, the ideal class group (or class group) of an algebraic number field is the quotient group where is the group of fractional ideals of the ring of integers of , and is its subgroup of principal ideals. The class group is a m ...

es in the

order Order, ORDER or Orders may refer to: * Categorization, the process in which ideas and objects are recognized, differentiated, and understood * Heterarchy, a system of organization wherein the elements have the potential to be ranked a number of d ...

\mathbb (f(x)).

where ideals are considered equivalent if they are equal up to an overall (nonzero) rational scalar multiple. (Note that this order need not be the full ring of integers, so nonzero ideals need not be invertible.) Since an order in a number field has only finitely many ideal classes (even if it is not the maximal order, and we mean here ideals classes for all nonzero ideals, not just the invertible ones), it follows that there are only finitely many

conjugacy class In mathematics, especially group theory, two elements a and b of a group are conjugate if there is an element g in the group such that b = gag^. This is an equivalence relation whose equivalence classes are called conjugacy classes. In other wor ...

es of matrices over the integers with characteristic polynomial

f(x)

References

Theorems in abstract algebra {{algebra-stub