The size function for imaginary cyclic sextic fields

Abstract

In this paper, we investigate the size function $h^0$ for number fields. This size function is analogous to the dimension of the Riemann-Roch spaces of divisors on an algebraic curve. Van der Geer and Schoof conjectured that $h^0$ attains its maximum at the trivial class of Arakelov divisors. This conjecture was proved for all number fields with unit group of rank 0 and 1, and also for cyclic cubic fields which have unit group of rank two. We prove the conjecture also holds for totally imaginary cyclic sextic fields, another class of number fields with unit group of rank two.