On the existence of large degree Galois representations for fields of small discriminant

Let $L\mathrm{/}K$ be a Galois extension of number fields. We prove two lower bounds on the maximum of the degrees of the irreducible complex representations of $\mathrm{G}\mathrm{a}\mathrm{l}(L\mathrm{/}K)$, the sharper of which is conditional on the Artin Conjecture and the Generalized Riemann Hypothesis. Our bound is nontrivial when $[K : $\mathbb{Q}$]$issmalland$L$ has small root discriminant, and might be summarized as saying that such fields can’t be “too abelian.”