Valued Fields (Springer Monographs in Mathematics)

Absolute values and their completions – such as the p-adic number fields – play an important role in number theory. Krull''s generalization of absolute values to valuations made possible applications in other branches of mathematics. In valuation theory, the notion of completion must be replaced by that of "Henselization". This book develops the theory of valuations as well as of Henselizations, based on the skills of a standard graduate course in algebra.