Truncated expansion of $\zeta_{p^n}$ in the $p$-adic Mal'cev-Neumann field

Abstract

Fix an odd prime $p$. In this article, we provide a $\mathrm{mod}\ p$ harmonic number identity, which appears naturally in the canonical expansion of a root $\zeta_{p^n}$ of the $p^n$-th cyclotomic polynomial $\Phi_{p^n}(T)$ in the $p$-adic Mal'cev-Neumann field $\mathbb{L}_p$. We establish a $\frac{2}{(p-1)p^{n-2}}$-truncated expansion of $\zeta_{p^n}$ via a variant of the transfinite Newton algorithm, which gives the first $\aleph_0^2$ terms of the canonical expansion of $\zeta_{p^n}$. The harmonic number identity simplifies the expression of this expansion.