Let be an algebraic number field with ring of integers
, and let
be an ideal. Suppose
such that
. Prove that
.
Let be a basis for
over
. (This exists by Theorem 7.10). In particular, for each
, there exist rational integers
such that
. Rearranging, we have
for each
, where
is the Kronecker delta. In particular,
is a nontrivial solution to the matrix equation
, where
. Thus
. On the other hand, by the Leibniz expansion for determinants,
is a polynomial in
having coefficients in
. Thus
is an algebraic integer, and more specifically
.