Class numbers of cyclotomic function fields

Let be a prime power and let be the finite field with elements. For each polynomial in , one could use the Carlitz module to construct an abelian extension of , called a Carlitz cyclotomic extension. Carlitz cyclotomic extensions play a fundamental role in the study of abelian extensions of , similar to the role played by cyclotomic number fields for abelian extensions of . We are interested in the tower of Carlitz cyclotomic extensions corresponding to the powers of a fixed irreducible polynomial in . Two types of properties are obtained for the -parts of the class numbers of the fields in this tower, for a fixed prime number . One gives congruence relations between the -parts of these class numbers. The other gives lower bound for the -parts of these class numbers.