Regulators of an Infinite Family of the
Simplest Quartic Function Fields
AbstractWe explicitly find regulators of an infinite family {Lm} of the simplest quartic function fields with a parameter m in a polynomial ring [t], where is the finite field of order q with odd characteristic. In fact, this infinite family of the simplest quartic function fields are subfields of maximal real subfields of cyclotomic function fields having the same conductors. We obtain a lower bound on the class numbers of the family {Lm} and some result on the divisibility of the divisor class numbers of cyclotomic function fields that contain {Lm} as their subfields. Furthermore, we find an explicit criterion for the characterization of splitting types of all the primes of the rational function field (t) in {Lm}.