The Galois characterisation of $p$-adically closed fields -- A modern perspective

Fuente: arXiv
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Hauptverfasser: Gitin, Leo, Koenigsmann, Jochen, Stock, Benedikt
Format: Preprint
Veröffentlicht: 2026
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author Gitin, Leo
Koenigsmann, Jochen
Stock, Benedikt
author_facet Gitin, Leo
Koenigsmann, Jochen
Stock, Benedikt
contents In 1927, Artin and Schreier showed that a field is real closed if and only if its absolute Galois group has order two. Inspired by this characterisation and drawing on earlier work of Neukirch, Pop conjectured the following $p$-adic analogue: a field is $p$-adically closed if and only if its absolute Galois group is isomorphic to that of $\mathbb{Q}_p$. In 1995, the conjecture was independently solved by Efrat for $p \ne 2$ and by Koenigsmann in full generality. Using novel techniques in the theory of valued fields developed over the last 25 years, we give a new, elementary, and self-contained proof of this theorem, with a Galois characterisation of henselianity at the heart of the proof and without relying on Galois cohomology. We further highlight connections to the recent work of Jahnke-Kartas on perfectoid fields and model-theoretic transfer techniques. We provide a systematic account of all of our methods to encourage further investigations.
format Preprint
id arxiv_https___arxiv_org_abs_2602_08095
institution arXiv
publishDate 2026
record_format arxiv
spellingShingle The Galois characterisation of $p$-adically closed fields -- A modern perspective
Gitin, Leo
Koenigsmann, Jochen
Stock, Benedikt
Number Theory
Commutative Algebra
Logic
11S20, 12L12 (Primary) 11U09, 12L10 (Secondary)
In 1927, Artin and Schreier showed that a field is real closed if and only if its absolute Galois group has order two. Inspired by this characterisation and drawing on earlier work of Neukirch, Pop conjectured the following $p$-adic analogue: a field is $p$-adically closed if and only if its absolute Galois group is isomorphic to that of $\mathbb{Q}_p$. In 1995, the conjecture was independently solved by Efrat for $p \ne 2$ and by Koenigsmann in full generality. Using novel techniques in the theory of valued fields developed over the last 25 years, we give a new, elementary, and self-contained proof of this theorem, with a Galois characterisation of henselianity at the heart of the proof and without relying on Galois cohomology. We further highlight connections to the recent work of Jahnke-Kartas on perfectoid fields and model-theoretic transfer techniques. We provide a systematic account of all of our methods to encourage further investigations.
title The Galois characterisation of $p$-adically closed fields -- A modern perspective
topic Number Theory
Commutative Algebra
Logic
11S20, 12L12 (Primary) 11U09, 12L10 (Secondary)
url https://arxiv.org/abs/2602.08095