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9 - Dirichlet Series

from Part III - Analytic Methods

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  27 March 2026

Jorge Morales
Affiliation:
Louisiana State University
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Summary

The study of Dirichlet series and their analytic properties lies at the heart of number theory, with deep connections to the distribution of primes and arithmetic invariants of number fields. A fundamental example is the L-series associated with Dirichlet characters, which generalizes the Riemann zeta function and play a crucial role in Dirichlet’s theorem on primes in arithmetic progressions. The behavior of these L-series at s = 1 is particularly significant, as shown in Dirichlet’s class number formula for quadratic fields, which links the value at s = 1 of a L-series to the class number via the Dedekind zeta function of a quadratic number field. Key to evaluating these L-series at s = 1 are Gauss sums, particularly the determination of the sign of the quadratic Gauss sum. We carry out this computation using the discrete Fourier transform following Ram Murty’s approach. This computation also yields another proof of quadratic reciprocity, formulated directly for the Jacobi symbol.

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  • Dirichlet Series
  • Jorge Morales, Louisiana State University
  • Book: Topics in Number Theory
  • Online publication: 27 March 2026
  • Chapter DOI: https://doi.org/10.1017/9781009760508.013
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  • Dirichlet Series
  • Jorge Morales, Louisiana State University
  • Book: Topics in Number Theory
  • Online publication: 27 March 2026
  • Chapter DOI: https://doi.org/10.1017/9781009760508.013
Available formats
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Save book to Google Drive

To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Google Drive.

  • Dirichlet Series
  • Jorge Morales, Louisiana State University
  • Book: Topics in Number Theory
  • Online publication: 27 March 2026
  • Chapter DOI: https://doi.org/10.1017/9781009760508.013
Available formats
×