Genus fields of Kummer extensions of rational function fields

Abstract

In this paper we obtain the genus field of a general Kummer extension of a global rational function field. We study first the case of a general Kummer extension of degree a power of a prime. Then we prove that the genus field of a composite of two abelian extensions of a global rational function field with relatively prime degrees is equal to the composite of their respective genus fields. Our main result, the genus of a general Kummer extension of a global rational function field, is a direct consequence of this fact.