PROOF..
We first prove the lemma when
for some prime number
.
In such a case Euler-Lagrange theorem implies that any element
of
has an order
for some
,
.
Let
be an element which has the largest order
.
Then we see that any element of
satisfies the equation
Since
is a field, there is at most
solutions to the equation.
Thus
. So we conclude that
the order
of
is equal to
and that
is generated by
.
Let us proceed now to the general case. Let us factorize the order :
prime,
Then
may be decomposed into product of
-subgroups
By using the first step of this proof we see that each
is
cyclic. Thus we conclude that
is also a cyclic group.