P-adic L-function

Article summary

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 (where p is a prime number). For example, the domain could be the p-adic integers Z p , a profinite p-group, or a p-adic family of Galois representations, and the image could be the p-adic numbers Q p or its algebraic closure. The source of a p-adic L-function tends to be one of two types. The first source—from which Tomio Kubota and Heinrich-Wolfgang Leopoldt gave the first construction of a p-adic L-function —is via the p-adic interpolation of special values of L-functions. For example, Kubota–Leopoldt used Kummer's congruences for Bernoulli numbers to construct a p-adic L-function, the p-adic Riemann zeta function ζ p (s), whose values at negative odd integers are those of the Riemann zeta function at negative odd integers (up to an explicit correction factor). p-adic L-functions arising in this fashion are typically referred to as analytic p-adic L-functions. The other major source of p-adic L-functions—first discovered by Kenkichi Iwasawa—is from the arithmetic of cyclotomic fields, or more generally, certain Galois modules over towers of cyclotomic fields or even more general towers.…

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