In mathematics, Thaine's theorem is an analogue of
Stickelberger's theorem
In mathematics, Stickelberger's theorem is a result of algebraic number theory, which gives some information about the Galois module structure of class groups of cyclotomic fields. A special case was first proven by Ernst Kummer (1847) while the ...
for real abelian fields, introduced by . Thaine's method has been used to shorten the proof of the
Mazur–Wiles theorem , to prove that some
Tate–Shafarevich group In arithmetic geometry, the Tate–Shafarevich group of an abelian variety (or more generally a group scheme) defined over a number field consists of the elements of the Weil–Châtelet group that become trivial in all of the completions of ...
s are finite, and in the proof of
Mihăilescu's theorem .
Formulation
Let
and
be distinct odd primes with
not dividing
. Let
be the Galois group of
over
, let
be its group of units, let
be the subgroup of cyclotomic units, and let
be its class group. If