Subdirect product

Last updated January 19, 2025

In mathematics, especially in the areas of abstract algebra known as universal algebra, group theory, ring theory, and module theory, a subdirect product is a subalgebra of a direct product that depends fully on all its factors without however necessarily being the whole direct product. The notion was introduced by Birkhoff in 1944, generalizing Emmy Noether's special case of the idea (and decomposition result) for Noetherian rings, and has proved to be a powerful generalization of the notion of direct product.^{[ citation needed ]}

Definition

A subdirect product is a subalgebra (in the sense of universal algebra) A of a direct product Π_iA_i such that every induced projection (the composite p_js: A → A_j of a projection p_j: Π_iA_i → A_j with the subalgebra inclusion s: A → Π_iA_i) is surjective.

A direct (subdirect) representation of an algebra A is a direct (subdirect) product isomorphic to A.

An algebra is called subdirectly irreducible if it is not subdirectly representable by "simpler" algebras (formally, if in any subdirect representation, one of the projections is an isomorphism). Subdirect irreducibles are to subdirect product of algebras roughly as primes are to multiplication of integers.

Birkhoff (1944) proved that every algebra all of whose operations are of finite arity is isomorphic to a subdirect product of subdirectly irreducible algebras.

Examples

Every permutation group is a sub-direct product of its restrictions to its orbits.
Any distributive lattice L is subdirectly representable as a subalgebra of a direct power of the two-element distributive lattice. This can be viewed as an algebraic formulation of the representability of L as a set of sets closed under the binary operations of union and intersection, via the interpretation of the direct power itself as a power set. In the finite case such a representation is direct (i.e. the whole direct power) if and only if L is a complemented lattice, i.e. a Boolean algebra.
The same holds for any semilattice when "semilattice" is substituted for "distributive lattice" and "subsemilattice" for "sublattice" throughout the preceding example. That is, every semilattice is representable as a subdirect power of the two-element semilattice.
The chain of natural numbers together with infinity, as a Heyting algebra, is subdirectly representable as a subalgebra of the direct product of the finite linearly ordered Heyting algebras. The situation with other Heyting algebras is treated in further detail in the article on subdirect irreducibles.
The group of integers under addition is subdirectly representable by any (necessarily infinite) family of arbitrarily large finite cyclic groups. In this representation, 0 is the sequence of identity elements of the representing groups, 1 is a sequence of generators chosen from the appropriate group, and integer addition and negation are the corresponding group operations in each group applied coordinate-wise. The representation is faithful (no two integers are represented by the same sequence) because of the size requirement, and the projections are onto because every coordinate eventually exhausts its group.
Every vector space over a given field is subdirectly representable by the one-dimensional space over that field, with the finite-dimensional spaces being directly representable in this way. (For vector spaces, as for abelian groups, direct product with finitely many factors is synonymous with direct sum with finitely many factors, whence subdirect product and subdirect sum are also synonymous for finitely many factors.)
Subdirect products are used to represent many small perfect groups in ( Holt & Plesken 1989 ).
Every reduced commutative Noetherian ring is a sub-direct product of integral domains (over a field, this corresponds to the decomposition of a variety into its irreducible components). And more generally every commutative Noetherian ring is a sub-direct product of rings whose only zero-divisors are nilpotent. (Originally proved in Section 6 of Noether (1921).)
Every commutative reduced ring is a sub-direct product of fields (Lemma 2 of Birkhoff (1944)).

Related Research Articles

In mathematics, rings are algebraic structures that generalize fields: multiplication need not be commutative and multiplicative inverses need not exist. Informally, 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 mathematics, a Noetherian ring is a ring that satisfies the ascending chain condition on left and right ideals; if the chain condition is satisfied only for left ideals or for right ideals, then the ring is said left-Noetherian or right-Noetherian respectively. That is, every increasing sequence $of left ideals has a largest element; that is, there exists an n such that:$

In mathematics, a unique factorization domain (UFD) is a ring in which a statement analogous to the fundamental theorem of arithmetic holds. Specifically, a UFD is an integral domain in which every non-zero non-unit element can be written as a product of irreducible elements, uniquely up to order and units.

In mathematics, 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 ring properties that are not specific to commutative rings. This distinction results from the high number of fundamental properties of commutative rings that do not extend to noncommutative rings.

Commutative algebra, first known as ideal theory, 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 algebra, ring theory is the study of rings, 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 ; related structures like rngs; as well as an array of properties that prove to be of interest both within the theory itself and for its applications, such as homological properties and polynomial identities.

Ring theory is the branch of mathematics in which rings are studied: that is, structures supporting both an addition and a multiplication operation. This is a glossary of some terms of the subject.

In mathematics, a distributive lattice is a lattice in which the operations of join and meet distribute over each other. The prototypical examples of such structures are collections of sets for which the lattice operations can be given by set union and intersection. Indeed, these lattices of sets describe the scenery completely: every distributive lattice is—up to isomorphism—given as such a lattice of sets.

A lattice is an abstract structure studied in the mathematical subdisciplines of order theory and abstract algebra. It consists of a partially ordered set in which every pair of elements has a unique supremum and a unique infimum. An example is given by the power set of a set, partially ordered by inclusion, for which the supremum is the union and the infimum is the intersection. Another example is given by the natural numbers, partially ordered by divisibility, for which the supremum is the least common multiple and the infimum is the greatest common divisor.

In mathematics, a spectral space is a topological space that is homeomorphic to the spectrum of a commutative ring. It is sometimes also called a coherent space because of the connection to coherent topoi.

In the mathematical area of order theory, there are various notions of the common concept of distributivity, applied to the formation of suprema and infima. Most of these apply to partially ordered sets that are at least lattices, but the concept can in fact reasonably be generalized to semilattices as well.

In abstract algebra, a residuated lattice is an algebraic structure that is simultaneously a lattice x ≤ y and a monoid x•y which admits operations x\z and z/y, loosely analogous to division or implication, when x•y is viewed as multiplication or conjunction, respectively. Called respectively right and left residuals, these operations coincide when the monoid is commutative. The general concept was introduced by Morgan Ward and Robert P. Dilworth in 1939. Examples, some of which existed prior to the general concept, include Boolean algebras, Heyting algebras, residuated Boolean algebras, relation algebras, and MV-algebras. Residuated semilattices omit the meet operation ∧, for example Kleene algebras and action algebras.

In mathematics, a representation theorem is a theorem that states that every abstract structure with certain properties is isomorphic to another structure.

Boolean algebra is a mathematically rich branch of abstract algebra. Stanford Encyclopaedia of Philosophy defines Boolean algebra as 'the algebra of two-valued logic with only sentential connectives, or equivalently of algebras of sets under union and complementation.' Just as group theory deals with groups, and linear algebra with vector spaces, Boolean algebras are models of the equational theory of the two values 0 and 1. Common to Boolean algebras, groups, and vector spaces is the notion of an algebraic structure, a set closed under some operations satisfying certain equations.

In mathematics, the congruence lattice problem asks whether every algebraic distributive lattice is isomorphic to the congruence lattice of some other lattice. The problem was posed by Robert P. Dilworth, and for many years it was one of the most famous and long-standing open problems in lattice theory; it had a deep impact on the development of lattice theory itself. The conjecture that every distributive lattice is a congruence lattice is true for all distributive lattices with at most ℵ₁ compact elements, but F. Wehrung provided a counterexample for distributive lattices with ℵ₂ compact elements using a construction based on Kuratowski's free set theorem.

In the branch of mathematics known as universal algebra, a subdirectly irreducible algebra is an algebra that cannot be factored as a subdirect product of "simpler" algebras. Subdirectly irreducible algebras play a somewhat analogous role in algebra to primes in number theory.

In mathematics, more specifically algebra, abstract algebra or modern algebra is the study of algebraic structures, which are sets with specific operations acting on their elements. Algebraic structures include groups, rings, fields, modules, vector spaces, lattices, and algebras over a field. The term abstract algebra was coined in the early 20th century to distinguish it from older parts of algebra, and more specifically from elementary algebra, the use of variables to represent numbers in computation and reasoning. The abstract perspective on algebra has become so fundamental to advanced mathematics that it is simply called "algebra", while the term "abstract algebra" is seldom used except in pedagogy.

In mathematics, Birkhoff's representation theorem for distributive lattices states that the elements of any finite distributive lattice can be represented as finite sets, in such a way that the lattice operations correspond to unions and intersections of sets. Here, a lattice is an abstract structure with two binary operations, the "meet" and "join" operations, which must obey certain axioms; it is distributive if these two operations obey the distributive law. The union and intersection operations, in a family of sets that is closed under these operations, automatically form a distributive lattice, and Birkhoff's representation theorem states that every finite distributive lattice can be formed in this way. It is named after Garrett Birkhoff, who published a proof of it in 1937.

References

Birkhoff, Garrett (1944), "Subdirect unions in universal algebra", Bulletin of the American Mathematical Society , 50 (10): 764–768, doi: 10.1090/S0002-9904-1944-08235-9 , ISSN 0002-9904, MR 0010542
Holt, Derek F.; Plesken, W. (1989), Perfect groups , Oxford Mathematical Monographs, The Clarendon Press Oxford University Press, ISBN 978-0-19-853559-1, MR 1025760
Noether, Emmy (1921), "Idealtheorie in Ringbereichen", Math. Ann., 83: 24–66, doi:10.1007/BF01464225
Berlyne, Daniel (2014), Ideal Theory in Rings (Translation of "Idealtheorie in Ringbereichen" by Emmy Noether), arXiv: 1401.2577

↑ Neuen, Daniel; Schweitzer, Pascal (2019), "Subgroups of 3-factor direct products", Tatra Mountains Mathematical Publications, 73, arXiv: 1607.03444

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[1] Neuen, Daniel; Schweitzer, Pascal (2019), "Subgroups of 3-factor direct products", Tatra Mountains Mathematical Publications, 73, arXiv: 1607.03444

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Subdirect product

Contents

Definition

Examples

See also

Related Research Articles

References