The set $\mathbb{Z}[\sqrt{d}]$

107 Views Asked by At

Note: this is very similar to this problem Norm on integral domain, but I’m attempting the proof for extra practice. Idk, it might even be equivalent to the first proposition but just worded differently.

Let $d>1$ be a square free integer. Consider the set $\mathbb{Z}[\sqrt{d}]= \{a+b\sqrt{d} : a, b\in \mathbb{Z}\}$.

Prove that every element in $\mathbb{Z}[\sqrt{d}]$ can be uniquely written in the form $a+b\sqrt{d}$.

1

There are 1 best solutions below

0
On BEST ANSWER

Proof. Let $x \in \mathbb{Z}[\sqrt{d}]$ where $d$ is a square free integer. Then $x = a + b \sqrt{d}$. Next, suppose that $x = n+m\sqrt{d}$ where $a \neq n$ and $b \neq m$. Then $a + b \sqrt{d} = n + m \sqrt{d}$, however, $\sqrt{d} \notin \mathbb{Z}$, so $b \sqrt{d} = m \sqrt{d}$, and since this is an integral domain, $b=m$. So, $a + b \sqrt{d} = n + b \sqrt{d}$, which means that $a = n$, so we have a contradiction. Therefore, every element in $\mathbb{Z}[\sqrt{d}]$ can be uniquely written as $a + b \sqrt{d}$.