In their classic paper "Class fields of abelian extensions of $\mathbf{Q}$", Mazur and Wiles assert that 



> 
> "in a cyclotomic
>  $\mathbf{Z}\_p$-extension only finitely
>  many primes lie above any prime of
>  $\mathbf{Q}$."
> 
> 
> 


My only other source in learning this material so far has been Washington's "Introduction to Cyclotomic Fields", and the only result along these lines is that such extensions are unramified outside of $p$. 


So apparently, all primes lying above $l \neq p$ stop splitting at some finite level $K\_n$, after which they remain inert. I've been unable to make much progress is proving this.



> 
> How can we see that this statement is
>  true, and what other, more general
>  results do we have about prime
>  decomposition in cyclotomic
>  extensions?
> 
> 
> 



Prime Decomposition in Cyclotomic Z_p-extensions
The point is that the Frobenius at $\ell$ is nontrivial in this extension, so it generates an open subgroup, and the fixed field of this subgroup is precisely the field at which $\ell$ stops splitting.


To see that Frob$\_\ell$ is nontrivial, recall that in the full $\mathbb{Z}\_p^\*$ extension $\mathbb{Q}(\mu\_{p^\infty})$, Frob$\_\ell$ is simply the element $\ell\in \mathbb{Z}\_p^\*$, which is clearly nontrivial. The cyclotomic $\mathbb{Z}\_p$ extension is obtained by quotienting $\mathbb{Z}\_p^\*$ by the subgroup $\mu\_{p-1}$. This subgroup does not contain $\ell$, so Frob$\_\ell$ remains nontrivial in the $\mathbb{Z}\_p$-extension.


