Counting Hopf-Galois Structures on Cyclic Field Extensions of Squarefree Degree

Abstract

We investigate Hopf-Galois structures on a cyclic field extension $L/K$ of squarefree degree $n$. By a result of Greither and Pareigis, each such Hopf-Galois structure corresponds to a group of order $n$, whose isomorphism class we call the type of the Hopf-Galois structure. We show that every group of order $n$ can occur, and we determine the number of Hopf-Galois structures of each type. We then express the total number of Hopf-Galois structures on $L/K$ as a sum over factorisations of $n$ into three parts. As examples, we give closed expressions for the number of Hopf-Galois structures on a cyclic extension whose degree is a product of three distinct primes. (There are several cases, depending on congruence conditions between the primes.) We also consider one case where the degree is a product of four primes.