Hopf Galois structures on separable field extensions of odd prime power degree

Abstract

A Hopf Galois structure on a finite field extension $L/K$ is a pair $(\mathcal{H},\mu)$, where $\mathcal{H}$ is a finite cocommutative $K$-Hopf algebra and $\mu$ a Hopf action. In this paper, we present several results on Hopf Galois structures on odd prime power degree separable field extensions. We prove that if a separable field extension of odd prime power degree has a Hopf Galois structure of cyclic type, then it has no structure of noncyclic type. We determine the number of Hopf Galois structures of cyclic type on a separable field extension of degree $p^n$, $p$ an odd prime, such that the Galois group of its normal closure is a semidirect product $C_{p^n}\rtimes C_D$ of the cyclic group of order $p^n$ and a cyclic group of order $D$, with $D$ prime to $p$. We characterize the transitive groups of degree $p^3$ which are Galois groups of the normal closure of a separable field extension having some cyclic Hopf Galois structure and determine the number of those. We prove that if a separable field extension of degree $p^3$ has a nonabelian Hopf Galois structure then it has an abelian structure whose type has the same exponent as the nonabelian type. We obtain that, for $p>3$, the two abelian noncyclic Hopf Galois structures do not occur on the same separable extension of degree $p^3$. We present a table which gives the number of Hopf Galois structures of each possible type on a separable extension of degree $27$ to illustrate that for $p=3$, all four noncyclic Hopf Galois structures may occur on the same extension. Finally, putting together all previous results, we list all possible sets of Hopf Galois structure types on a separable extension of degree $p^3$, for $p>3$ a prime.