Let $F$ be any field. We give a short and elementary proof that any finite subgroup $G$ of $PGL(2,F)$ occurs as a Galois group over the function field $F(x)$. We also develop a theory of descent to subfields of $F$. This enables us to realize the automorphism groups of finite subgroups of $PGL(2,F)$ as Galois groups.
In this paper we generalize results of P. Le Duff to genus n hyperelliptic curves. More precisely, let C/Q be a hyperelliptic genus n curve and let J(C) be the associated Jacobian variety. Assume that there exists a prime p such that J(C) has semistable reduction with toric dimension 1 at p. We provide an algorithm to compute a list of primes l (if they exist) such that the Galois representation attached to the l-torsion of J(C) is surjective onto the group GSp(2n, l). In particular we realize GSp(6, l) as a Galois group over Q for all primes l in [11, 500000].
In this note we give a self-contained proof of the following classification (up to conjugation) of subgroups of the general symplectic group of dimension n over a finite field of characteristic l, for l at least 5, which can be derived from work of Kantor: G is either reducible, symplectically imprimitive or it contains Sp(n, l). This result is for instance useful for proving big image results for symplectic Galois representations.
For each odd prime p>=5, there exist finite p-groups G with derived quotient G/D(G)=C(p)xC(p) and nearly constant transfer kernel type k(G)=(1,2,...,2) having two fixed points. It is proved that, for p=7, this type k(G) with the simplest possible case of logarithmic abelian quotient invariants t(G)=(11111,111,21,21,21,21,21,21) of the eight maximal subgroups is realized by exactly 98 non-metabelian Schur sigma-groups S of order 7^11 with fixed derived length dl(S)=3 and metabelianizations S/D(D(S)) of order 7^7. For p=5, the type k(G) with t(G)=(2111,111,21,21,21,21) leads to infinitely many non-metabelian Schur sigma-groups S of order at least 5^14 with unbounded derived length dl(S)>=3 and metabelianizations S/D(D(S)) of fixed order 5^7. These results admit the conclusion that d=-159592 is the first known discriminant of an imaginary quadratic field with 7-class field tower of precise length L=3, and d=-90868 is a discriminant of an imaginary quadratic field with 5-class field tower of length L>=3, whose exact length remains unknown.
We estimate several probability distributions arising from the study of random, monic polynomials of degree $n$ with coefficients in the integers of a general $p$-adic field $K_{mathfrak{p}}$ having residue field with $q= p^f$ elements. We estimate the distribution of the degrees of irreducible factors of the polynomials, with tight error bounds valid when $q> n^2+n$. We also estimate the distribution of Galois groups of such polynomials, showing that for fixed $n$, almost all Galois groups are cyclic in the limit $q to infty$. In particular, we show that the Galois groups are cyclic with probability at least $1 - frac{1}{q}$. We obtain exact formulas in the case of $K_{mathfrak{p}}$ for all $p > n$ when $n=2$ and $n=3$.