Question #302529

Prove or disprove: Every subgroup of the integers has finite index.


1
Expert's answer
2022-02-27T16:33:27-0500

Let HH be a subgroup of Z\mathbb{Z}. First of all, we study apart the case of H={0}H=\{0\}. In this case HH has an infinite index, but this is a degenerate case.

Now let HH be a non-trivial subgroup, then HH has a non-zero element xx with a minimal absolute value x>0|x|>0. Let us prove that H=xZH=x\mathbb{Z}. First, xZHx\mathbb{Z}\subseteq H. Second, suppose that there is yHy\in H such that yaxy\neq a\cdot x with aZa\in \mathbb{Z}. The euclidian division of yy by xx gives us a remainder rHr\in H (as r=yaxr=y-a\cdot x and both terms are in HH), but by the properties of a euclidian division r<x and   r0|r|<|x| \text{ and } \; r\neq 0 as yaxy\neq a\cdot x. This condraticts the fact that xHx\in H is of minimal absolute value. Therefore, H=xZH=x\cdot \mathbb{Z} and we easily deduce that the index of HH is x|x| and so is finite.

We conclude that the index of every non-trivial subgroup of the integers is finite. For the trivial subgroup this is obviously false.


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