Cyclotomic Units

The determination of the unit group of an algebraic number field is rather difficult in general. However, for cyclotomic fields, it is possible to give explicitly a group of units, namely the cyclotomic units, which is of finite index in the full unit group. Moreover, this index is closely related to the class number, a fact which allows us to prove Leopoldt’s p-adic class number formula. Finally, we study more closely the units of the pth cyclotomic field, and give relations with p-adic L-functions and with Vandiver’s conjecture.