Lawrence C. Washington

Last updated

Lawrence Clinton Washington (born 1951, in Vermont) is an American mathematician at the University of Maryland who specializes in number theory.

Contents

Biography

Washington studied at Johns Hopkins University, where in 1971 he received his B.A. and master's degree. In 1974 he earned his PhD at Princeton University under Kenkichi Iwasawa with thesis Class numbers and extensions. [1] He then became an assistant professor at Stanford University and from 1977 at the University of Maryland, where he became in 1981 an associate professor and in 1986 a professor. He held visiting positions at several institutions, including IHES (1980/81), Max-Planck-Institut für Mathematik (1984), the Institute for Advanced Study (1996), and MSRI (1986/87), as well as at the University of Perugia, Nankai University and the State University of Campinas. In 1979–1981 he was a Sloan Fellow.[ citation needed ]

Recognition

He was named to the 2023 class of Fellows of the American Mathematical Society, "for contributions to number theory, especially cyclotomic fields, and for mentoring at all levels". [2]

Research

Washington wrote a standard work on cyclotomic fields. He also worked on p-adic L-functions. He wrote a treatise with Allan Adler on their discovery of a connection between higher-dimensional analogues of magic squares and p-adic L-functions. [3] Washington has done important work on Iwasawa theory, Cohen-Lenstra heuristics, and elliptic curves and their applications to cryptography.[ citation needed ]

In Iwasawa theory he proved with Bruce Ferrero in 1979 a conjecture of Kenkichi Iwasawa, that the -invariant vanishes for cyclotomic Zp-extensions of abelian number fields (Theorem of Ferrero-Washington). [4]

More recently, Washington has published on arithmetic dynamics, sums of powers of primes, and Iwasawa invariants of non-cyclotomic Zp extensions

Selected works

Sources

Related Research Articles

In mathematics, class field theory (CFT) is the fundamental branch of algebraic number theory whose goal is to describe all the abelian Galois extensions of local and global fields using objects associated to the ground field.

In number theory, Iwasawa theory is the study of objects of arithmetic interest over infinite towers of number fields. It began as a Galois module theory of ideal class groups, initiated by Kenkichi Iwasawa (1959), as part of the theory of cyclotomic fields. In the early 1970s, Barry Mazur considered generalizations of Iwasawa theory to abelian varieties. More recently, Ralph Greenberg has proposed an Iwasawa theory for motives.

In mathematics, a Galois module is a G-module, with G being the Galois group of some extension of fields. The term Galois representation is frequently used when the G-module is a vector space over a field or a free module over a ring in representation theory, but can also be used as a synonym for G-module. The study of Galois modules for extensions of local or global fields and their group cohomology is an important tool in number theory.

In mathematics, complex multiplication (CM) is the theory of elliptic curves E that have an endomorphism ring larger than the integers. Put another way, it contains the theory of elliptic functions with extra symmetries, such as are visible when the period lattice is the Gaussian integer lattice or Eisenstein integer lattice.

In mathematics, local class field theory, introduced by Helmut Hasse, is the study of abelian extensions of local fields; here, "local field" means a field which is complete with respect to an absolute value or a discrete valuation with a finite residue field: hence every local field is isomorphic (as a topological field) to the real numbers R, the complex numbers C, a finite extension of the p-adic numbersQp (where p is any prime number), or the field of formal Laurent series Fq((T)) over a finite field Fq.

In mathematics, the Herbrand–Ribet theorem is a result on the class group of certain number fields. It is a strengthening of Ernst Kummer's theorem to the effect that the prime p divides the class number of the cyclotomic field of p-th roots of unity if and only if p divides the numerator of the n-th Bernoulli number Bn for some n, 0 < n < p − 1. The Herbrand–Ribet theorem specifies what, in particular, it means when p divides such an Bn.

Kenkichi Iwasawa was a Japanese mathematician who is known for his influence on algebraic number theory.

Hilbert's twelfth problem is the extension of the Kronecker–Weber theorem on abelian extensions of the rational numbers, to any base number field. It is one of the 23 mathematical Hilbert problems and asks for analogues of the roots of unity that generate a whole family of further number fields, analogously to the cyclotomic fields and their subfields. Leopold Kronecker described the complex multiplication issue as his liebster Jugendtraum, or "dearest dream of his youth", so the problem is also known as Kronecker's Jugendtraum.

In mathematics, a Tate module of an abelian group, named for John Tate, is a module constructed from an abelian group A. Often, this construction is made in the following situation: G is a commutative group scheme over a field K, Ks is the separable closure of K, and A = G(Ks). In this case, the Tate module of A is equipped with an action of the absolute Galois group of K, and it is referred to as the Tate module of G.

In algebraic number theory, Leopoldt's conjecture, introduced by H.-W. Leopoldt, states that the p-adic regulator of a number field does not vanish. The p-adic regulator is an analogue of the usual regulator defined using p-adic logarithms instead of the usual logarithms, introduced by H.-W. Leopoldt (1962).

In mathematics, a p-adic zeta function, or more generally a p-adic L-function, is a function analogous to the Riemann zeta function, or more general L-functions, but whose domain and target are p-adic. For example, the domain could be the p-adic integersZp, a profinite p-group, or a p-adic family of Galois representations, and the image could be the p-adic numbersQp or its algebraic closure.

In mathematics, the main conjecture of Iwasawa theory is a deep relationship between p-adic L-functions and ideal class groups of cyclotomic fields, proved by Kenkichi Iwasawa for primes satisfying the Kummer–Vandiver conjecture and proved for all primes by Mazur and Wiles (1984). The Herbrand–Ribet theorem and the Gras conjecture are both easy consequences of the main conjecture. There are several generalizations of the main conjecture, to totally real fields, CM fields, elliptic curves, and so on.

In number theory, a cyclotomic field is a number field obtained by adjoining a complex root of unity to Q, the field of rational numbers.

In mathematics, the Lubin–Tate formal group law is a formal group law introduced by Lubin and Tate (1965) to isolate the local field part of the classical theory of complex multiplication of elliptic functions. In particular it can be used to construct the totally ramified abelian extensions of a local field. It does this by considering the (formal) endomorphisms of the formal group, emulating the way in which elliptic curves with extra endomorphisms are used to give abelian extensions of global fields.

In mathematics, the Iwasawa algebra Λ(G) of a profinite group G is a variation of the group ring of G with p-adic coefficients that take the topology of G into account. More precisely, Λ(G) is the inverse limit of the group rings Zp(G/H) as H runs through the open normal subgroups of G. Commutative Iwasawa algebras were introduced by Iwasawa (1959) in his study of Zp extensions in Iwasawa theory, and non-commutative Iwasawa algebras of compact p-adic analytic groups were introduced by Lazard (1965).

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Ralph Greenberg</span> American mathematician (born 1944)

Ralph Greenberg is an American mathematician who has made contributions to number theory, in particular Iwasawa theory.

In algebraic number theory, the Ferrero–Washington theorem states that Iwasawa's μ-invariant vanishes for cyclotomic Zp-extensions of abelian algebraic number fields. It was first proved by Ferrero & Washington (1979). A different proof was given by Sinnott (1984).

Greenberg's conjecture is either of two conjectures in algebraic number theory proposed by Ralph Greenberg. Both are still unsolved as of 2021.

Cornelius Greither is a German mathematician specialising in Iwasawa theory and the structure of Galois modules.

References

  1. Class numbers and extensions, Mathematische Annalen, vol. 214, 1975, p. 177
  2. "2023 Class of Fellows". American Mathematical Society. Retrieved 2022-11-09.
  3. Adler, Washington P-adic L functions and higher dimensional magic cubes, Journal of Number Theory, vol. 52, 1995, p.179. See also Adler, Mathematical Intelligencer. 1992
  4. Ferrero, Washington The Iwasawa invariant μp vanishes for abelian number fields, Annals of Mathematics, vol. 109, 1979, pp. 377–395. Another proof was provided by W. Sinnott, Inventiones Mathematicae, vol. 75, 1984, 273.