# Ring theory

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In algebra, ring theory is the study of rings [1] algebraic structures in which addition and multiplication are defined and have similar properties to those operations defined for the integers. Ring theory studies the structure of rings, their representations, or, in different language, modules, special classes of rings (group rings, division rings, universal enveloping algebras), as well as an array of properties that proved to be of interest both within the theory itself and for its applications, such as homological properties and polynomial identities.

## Contents

Commutative rings are much better understood than noncommutative ones. Algebraic geometry and algebraic number theory, which provide many natural examples of commutative rings, have driven much of the development of commutative ring theory, which is now, under the name of commutative algebra , a major area of modern mathematics. Because these three fields (algebraic geometry, algebraic number theory and commutative algebra) are so intimately connected it is usually difficult and meaningless to decide which field a particular result belongs to. For example, Hilbert's Nullstellensatz is a theorem which is fundamental for algebraic geometry, and is stated and proved in terms of commutative algebra. Similarly, Fermat's last theorem is stated in terms of elementary arithmetic, which is a part of commutative algebra, but its proof involves deep results of both algebraic number theory and algebraic geometry.

Noncommutative rings are quite different in flavour, since more unusual behavior can arise. While the theory has developed in its own right, a fairly recent trend has sought to parallel the commutative development by building the theory of certain classes of noncommutative rings in a geometric fashion as if they were rings of functions on (non-existent) 'noncommutative spaces'. This trend started in the 1980s with the development of noncommutative geometry and with the discovery of quantum groups. It has led to a better understanding of noncommutative rings, especially noncommutative Noetherian rings. [2]

For the definitions of a ring and basic concepts and their properties, see Ring (mathematics) . The definitions of terms used throughout ring theory may be found in Glossary of ring theory .

## Commutative rings

A ring is called commutative if its multiplication is commutative. Commutative rings resemble familiar number systems, and various definitions for commutative rings are designed to formalize properties of the integers. Commutative rings are also important in algebraic geometry. In commutative ring theory, numbers are often replaced by ideals, and the definition of the prime ideal tries to capture the essence of prime numbers. Integral domains, non-trivial commutative rings where no two non-zero elements multiply to give zero, generalize another property of the integers and serve as the proper realm to study divisibility. Principal ideal domains are integral domains in which every ideal can be generated by a single element, another property shared by the integers. Euclidean domains are integral domains in which the Euclidean algorithm can be carried out. Important examples of commutative rings can be constructed as rings of polynomials and their factor rings. Summary: Euclidean domainprincipal ideal domainunique factorization domainintegral domaincommutative ring.

### Algebraic geometry

Algebraic geometry is in many ways the mirror image of commutative algebra. This correspondence started with Hilbert's Nullstellensatz that establishes a one-to-one correspondence between the points of an algebraic variety, and the maximal ideals of its coordinate ring. This correspondence has been enlarged and systematized for translating (and proving) most geometrical properties of algebraic varieties into algebraic properties of associated commutative rings. Alexander Grothendieck completed this by introducing schemes, a generalization of algebraic varieties, which may be built from any commutative ring. More precisely, the spectrum of a commutative ring is the space of its prime ideals equipped with Zariski topology, and augmented with a sheaf of rings. These objects are the "affine schemes" (generalization of affine varieties), and a general scheme is then obtained by "gluing together" (by purely algebraic methods) several such affine schemes, in analogy to the way of constructing a manifold by gluing together the charts of an atlas.

## Noncommutative rings

Noncommutative rings resemble rings of matrices in many respects. Following the model of algebraic geometry, attempts have been made recently at defining noncommutative geometry based on noncommutative rings. Noncommutative rings and associative algebras (rings that are also vector spaces) are often studied via their categories of modules. A module over a ring is an abelian group that the ring acts on as a ring of endomorphisms, very much akin to the way fields (integral domains in which every non-zero element is invertible) act on vector spaces. Examples of noncommutative rings are given by rings of square matrices or more generally by rings of endomorphisms of abelian groups or modules, and by monoid rings.

### Representation theory

Representation theory is a branch of mathematics that draws heavily on non-commutative rings. It studies abstract algebraic structures by representing their elements as linear transformations of vector spaces, and studies modules over these abstract algebraic structures. In essence, a representation makes an abstract algebraic object more concrete by describing its elements by matrices and the algebraic operations in terms of matrix addition and matrix multiplication, which is non-commutative. The algebraic objects amenable to such a description include groups, associative algebras and Lie algebras. The most prominent of these (and historically the first) is the representation theory of groups, in which elements of a group are represented by invertible matrices in such a way that the group operation is matrix multiplication.

## Some relevant theorems

General

Structure theorems

Other

## Structures and invariants of rings

### Dimension of a commutative ring

In this section, R denotes a commutative ring. The Krull dimension of R is the supremum of the lengths n of all the chains of prime ideals ${\displaystyle {\mathfrak {p}}_{0}\subsetneq {\mathfrak {p}}_{1}\subsetneq \cdots \subsetneq {\mathfrak {p}}_{n}}$. It turns out that the polynomial ring ${\displaystyle k[t_{1},\cdots ,t_{n}]}$ over a field k has dimension n. The fundamental theorem of dimension theory states that the following numbers coincide for a noetherian local ring ${\displaystyle (R,{\mathfrak {m}})}$: [3]

• The Krull dimension of R.
• The minimum number of the generators of the ${\displaystyle {\mathfrak {m}}}$-primary ideals.
• The dimension of the graded ring ${\displaystyle \textstyle \operatorname {gr} _{\mathfrak {m}}(R)=\bigoplus _{k\geq 0}{\mathfrak {m}}^{k}/{{\mathfrak {m}}^{k+1}}}$ (equivalently, 1 plus the degree of its Hilbert polynomial).

A commutative ring R is said to be catenary if for every pair of prime ideals ${\displaystyle {\mathfrak {p}}\subset {\mathfrak {p}}'}$, there exists a finite chain of prime ideals ${\displaystyle {\mathfrak {p}}={\mathfrak {p}}_{0}\subsetneq \cdots \subsetneq {\mathfrak {p}}_{n}={\mathfrak {p}}'}$ that is maximal in the sense that it is impossible to insert an additional prime ideal between two ideals in the chain, and all such maximal chains between ${\displaystyle {\mathfrak {p}}}$ and ${\displaystyle {\mathfrak {p}}'}$ have the same length. Practically all noetherian rings that appear in applications are catenary. Ratliff proved that a noetherian local integral domain R is catenary if and only if for every prime ideal ${\displaystyle {\mathfrak {p}}}$,

${\displaystyle \operatorname {dim} R=\operatorname {ht} {\mathfrak {p}}+\operatorname {dim} R/{\mathfrak {p}}}$

where ${\displaystyle \operatorname {ht} {\mathfrak {p}}}$ is the height of ${\displaystyle {\mathfrak {p}}}$. [4]

If R is an integral domain that is a finitely generated k-algebra, then its dimension is the transcendence degree of its field of fractions over k. If S is an integral extension of a commutative ring R, then S and R have the same dimension.

Closely related concepts are those of depth and global dimension. In general, if R is a noetherian local ring, then the depth of R is less than or equal to the dimension of R. When the equality holds, R is called a Cohen–Macaulay ring. A regular local ring is an example of a Cohen–Macaulay ring. It is a theorem of Serre that R is a regular local ring if and only if it has finite global dimension and in that case the global dimension is the Krull dimension of R. The significance of this is that a global dimension is a homological notion.

### Morita equivalence

Two rings R, S are said to be Morita equivalent if the category of left modules over R is equivalent to the category of left modules over S. In fact, two commutative rings which are Morita equivalent must be isomorphic, so the notion does not add anything new to the category of commutative rings. However, commutative rings can be Morita equivalent to noncommutative rings, so Morita equivalence is coarser than isomorphism. Morita equivalence is especially important in algebraic topology and functional analysis.

### Finitely generated projective module over a ring and Picard group

Let R be a commutative ring and ${\displaystyle \mathbf {P} (R)}$ the set of isomorphism classes of finitely generated projective modules over R; let also ${\displaystyle \mathbf {P} _{n}(R)}$ subsets consisting of those with constant rank n. (The rank of a module M is the continuous function ${\displaystyle \operatorname {Spec} R\to \mathbb {Z} ,\,{\mathfrak {p}}\mapsto \dim M\otimes _{R}k({\mathfrak {p}})}$. [5] ) ${\displaystyle \mathbf {P} _{1}(R)}$ is usually denoted by Pic(R). It is an abelian group called the Picard group of R. [6] If R is an integral domain with the field of fractions F of R, then there is an exact sequence of groups: [7]

${\displaystyle 1\to R^{*}\to F^{*}{\overset {f\mapsto fR}{\to }}\operatorname {Cart} (R)\to \operatorname {Pic} (R)\to 1}$

where ${\displaystyle \operatorname {Cart} (R)}$ is the set of fractional ideals of R. If R is a regular domain (i.e., regular at any prime ideal), then Pic(R) is precisely the divisor class group of R. [8]

For example, if R is a principal ideal domain, then Pic(R) vanishes. In algebraic number theory, R will be taken to be the ring of integers, which is Dedekind and thus regular. It follows that Pic(R) is a finite group (finiteness of class number) that measures the deviation of the ring of integers from being a PID.

One can also consider the group completion of ${\displaystyle \mathbf {P} (R)}$; this results in a commutative ring K0(R). Note that K0(R) = K0(S) if two commutative rings R, S are Morita equivalent.

### Structure of noncommutative rings

The structure of a noncommutative ring is more complicated than that of a commutative ring. For example, there exist simple rings, containing no non-trivial proper (two-sided) ideals, which contain non-trivial proper left or right ideals. Various invariants exist for commutative rings, whereas invariants of noncommutative rings are difficult to find. As an example, the nilradical of a ring, the set of all nilpotent elements, need not be an ideal unless the ring is commutative. Specifically, the set of all nilpotent elements in the ring of all n x n matrices over a division ring never forms an ideal, irrespective of the division ring chosen. There are, however, analogues of the nilradical defined for noncommutative rings, that coincide with the nilradical when commutativity is assumed.

The concept of the Jacobson radical of a ring; that is, the intersection of all right/left annihilators of simple right/left modules over a ring, is one example. The fact that the Jacobson radical can be viewed as the intersection of all maximal right/left ideals in the ring, shows how the internal structure of the ring is reflected by its modules. It is also a fact that the intersection of all maximal right ideals in a ring is the same as the intersection of all maximal left ideals in the ring, in the context of all rings; whether commutative or noncommutative.

Noncommutative rings serve as an active area of research due to their ubiquity in mathematics. For instance, the ring of n-by-n matrices over a field is noncommutative despite its natural occurrence in geometry, physics and many parts of mathematics. More generally, endomorphism rings of abelian groups are rarely commutative, the simplest example being the endomorphism ring of the Klein four-group.

One of the best known noncommutative rings is the division ring of quaternions.

## Applications

### The coordinate ring of an algebraic variety

If X is an affine algebraic variety, then the set of all regular functions on X forms a ring called the coordinate ring of X. For a projective variety, there is an analogous ring called the homogeneous coordinate ring. Those rings are essentially the same things as varieties: they correspond in essentially a unique way. This may be seen via either Hilbert's Nullstellensatz or scheme-theoretic constructions (i.e., Spec and Proj).

### Ring of invariants

A basic (and perhaps the most fundamental) question in the classical invariant theory is to find and study polynomials in the polynomial ring ${\displaystyle k[V]}$ that are invariant under the action of a finite group (or more generally reductive) G on V. The main example is the ring of symmetric polynomials: symmetric polynomials are polynomials that are invariant under permutation of variable. The fundamental theorem of symmetric polynomials states that this ring is ${\displaystyle R[\sigma _{1},\ldots ,\sigma _{n}]}$ where ${\displaystyle \sigma _{i}}$ are elementary symmetric polynomials.

## History

Commutative ring theory originated in algebraic number theory, algebraic geometry, and invariant theory. Central to the development of these subjects were the rings of integers in algebraic number fields and algebraic function fields, and the rings of polynomials in two or more variables. Noncommutative ring theory began with attempts to extend the complex numbers to various hypercomplex number systems. The genesis of the theories of commutative and noncommutative rings dates back to the early 19th century, while their maturity was achieved only in the third decade of the 20th century.

More precisely, William Rowan Hamilton put forth the quaternions and biquaternions; James Cockle presented tessarines and coquaternions; and William Kingdon Clifford was an enthusiast of split-biquaternions, which he called algebraic motors. These noncommutative algebras, and the non-associative Lie algebras, were studied within universal algebra before the subject was divided into particular mathematical structure types. One sign of re-organization was the use of direct sums to describe algebraic structure.

The various hypercomplex numbers were identified with matrix rings by Joseph Wedderburn (1908) and Emil Artin (1928). Wedderburn's structure theorems were formulated for finite-dimensional algebras over a field while Artin generalized them to Artinian rings.

In 1920, Emmy Noether, in collaboration with W. Schmeidler, published a paper about the theory of ideals in which they defined left and right ideals in a ring. The following year she published a landmark paper called Idealtheorie in Ringbereichen, analyzing ascending chain conditions with regard to (mathematical) ideals. Noted algebraist Irving Kaplansky called this work "revolutionary"; [9] the publication gave rise to the term "Noetherian ring", and several other mathematical objects being called Noetherian . [9] [10]

## Notes

1. Ring theory may include also the study of rngs.
2. Matsumura 1989 , Theorem 13.4
3. Matsumura 1989 , Theorem 31.4
4. Weibel 2013 , Ch I, Definition 2.2.3
5. Weibel 2013 , Definition preceding Proposition 3.2 in Ch I
6. Weibel 2013 , Ch I, Proposition 3.5
7. Weibel 2013 , Ch I, Corollary 3.8.1
8. Kimberling 1981, p. 18.
9. Dick, Auguste (1981), Emmy Noether: 1882–1935, translated by Blocher, H. I., Birkhäuser, ISBN   3-7643-3019-8 , p. 44–45.

## Related Research Articles

In mathematics, rings are algebraic structures that generalize fields: multiplication need not be commutative and multiplicative inverses need not exist. In other words, a ring is a set equipped with two binary operations satisfying properties analogous to those of addition and multiplication of integers. Ring elements may be numbers such as integers or complex numbers, but they may also be non-numerical objects such as polynomials, square matrices, functions, and power series.

In commutative algebra, the Krull dimension of a commutative ring R, named after Wolfgang Krull, is the supremum of the lengths of all chains of prime ideals. The Krull dimension need not be finite even for a Noetherian ring. More generally the Krull dimension can be defined for modules over possibly non-commutative rings as the deviation of the poset of submodules.

In mathematics, more specifically in the area of abstract algebra known as ring theory, a Noetherian ring is a ring that satisfies the ascending chain condition on left and right ideals; that is, given any increasing sequence of left ideals:

In ring theory, a branch of abstract algebra, a commutative ring is a ring in which the multiplication operation is commutative. The study of commutative rings is called commutative algebra. Complementarily, noncommutative algebra is the study of noncommutative rings where multiplication is not required to be commutative.

Commutative algebra is the branch of algebra that studies commutative rings, their ideals, and modules over such rings. Both algebraic geometry and algebraic number theory build on commutative algebra. Prominent examples of commutative rings include polynomial rings; rings of algebraic integers, including the ordinary integers ; and p-adic integers.

In commutative algebra and algebraic geometry, localization is a formal way to introduce the "denominators" to a given ring or module. That is, it introduces a new ring/module out of an existing one so that it consists of fractions such that the denominator s belongs to a given subset S of R. If S is the set of the non-zero elements of an integral domain, then the localization is the field of fractions: this case generalizes the construction of the ring Q of rational numbers from the ring Z of integers.

In mathematics, particularly in algebra, the class of projective modules enlarges the class of free modules over a ring, by keeping some of the main properties of free modules. Various equivalent characterizations of these modules appear below.

In homological algebra and algebraic geometry, a flat module over a ring R is an R-module M such that taking the tensor product over R with M preserves exact sequences. A module is faithfully flat if taking the tensor product with a sequence produces an exact sequence if and only if the original sequence is exact.

In commutative algebra, a Gorenstein local ring is a commutative Noetherian local ring R with finite injective dimension as an R-module. There are many equivalent conditions, some of them listed below, often saying that a Gorenstein ring is self-dual in some sense.

In ring theory, a ring R is called a reduced ring if it has no non-zero nilpotent elements. Equivalently, a ring is reduced if it has no non-zero elements with square zero, that is, x2 = 0 implies x = 0. A commutative algebra over a commutative ring is called a reduced algebra if its underlying ring is reduced.

In mathematics, the Lasker–Noether theorem states that every Noetherian ring is a Lasker ring, which means that every ideal can be decomposed as an intersection, called primary decomposition, of finitely many primary ideals. The theorem was first proven by Emanuel Lasker (1905) for the special case of polynomial rings and convergent power series rings, and was proven in its full generality by Emmy Noether (1921).

In mathematics, ideal theory is the theory of ideals in commutative rings; and is the precursor name for the contemporary subject of commutative algebra. The name grew out of the central considerations, such as the Lasker–Noether theorem in algebraic geometry, and the ideal class group in algebraic number theory, of the commutative algebra of the first quarter of the twentieth century. It was used in the influential van der Waerden text on abstract algebra from around 1930.

In mathematics, more specifically abstract algebra and commutative algebra, Nakayama's lemma — also known as the Krull–Azumaya theorem — governs the interaction between the Jacobson radical of a ring and its finitely generated modules. Informally, the lemma immediately gives a precise sense in which finitely generated modules over a commutative ring behave like vector spaces over a field. It is an important tool in algebraic geometry, because it allows local data on algebraic varieties, in the form of modules over local rings, to be studied pointwise as vector spaces over the residue field of the ring.

In ring theory and homological algebra, the global dimension of a ring A denoted gl dim A, is a non-negative integer or infinity which is a homological invariant of the ring. It is defined to be the supremum of the set of projective dimensions of all A-modules. Global dimension is an important technical notion in the dimension theory of Noetherian rings. By a theorem of Jean-Pierre Serre, global dimension can be used to characterize within the class of commutative Noetherian local rings those rings which are regular. Their global dimension coincides with the Krull dimension, whose definition is module-theoretic.

In mathematics, the Noether normalization lemma is a result of commutative algebra, introduced by Emmy Noether in 1926. It states that for any field k, and any finitely generated commutative k-algebraA, there exists a non-negative integer d and algebraically independent elements y1, y2, ..., yd in A such that A is a finitely generated module over the polynomial ring S = k [y1, y2, ..., yd].

In commutative algebra, an element b of a commutative ring B is said to be integral overA, a subring of B, if there are n ≥ 1 and aj in A such that

In commutative and homological algebra, depth is an important invariant of rings and modules. Although depth can be defined more generally, the most common case considered is the case of modules over a commutative Noetherian local ring. In this case, the depth of a module is related with its projective dimension by the Auslander–Buchsbaum formula. A more elementary property of depth is the inequality

In mathematics, dimension theory is the study in terms of commutative algebra of the notion dimension of an algebraic variety. The need of a theory for such an apparently simple notion results from the existence of many definitions of the dimension that are equivalent only in the most regular cases. A large part of dimension theory consists in studying the conditions under which several dimensions are equal, and many important classes of commutative rings may be defined as the rings such that two dimensions are equal; for example, a regular ring is a commutative ring such that the homological dimension is equal to the Krull dimension.

In commutative algebra, an integrally closed domainA is an integral domain whose integral closure in its field of fractions is A itself. Spelled out, this means that if x is an element of the field of fractions of A which is a root of a monic polynomial with coefficients in A, then x is itself an element of A. Many well-studied domains are integrally closed: fields, the ring of integers Z, unique factorization domains and regular local rings are all integrally closed.

In mathematics, more specifically abstract algebra and ring theory, a noncommutative ring is a ring whose multiplication is not commutative; that is, there exists a and b in R with a·bb·a. Many authors use the term noncommutative ring to refer to rings which are not necessarily commutative, and hence include commutative rings in their definition. Noncommutative algebra is the study of results applying to rings that are not required to be commutative. Many important results in the field of noncommutative algebra area apply to commutative rings as special cases.