10 RINGS AND IDEALS Example. Consider Z > Z{i], where i = V—I. A prime ideal (p) of Z may or may not stay prime when extended to Z{i]. In fact Z[/] is a principal ideal domain (because it has a Euclidean algorithm) and the situation is as follows: i) Qt = (1 + 8%), the square of a prime ideal in Z{i]; ii) If p = 1 (mod 4) then (p) is the product of two distinct prime ideals (for example, (5)° = (2 + i(2 - i); iii) If p = 3 (mod 4) then (p) is prime in Z[i]. Of these, ii) is not a trivial result. It is effectively equivalent to a theorem of Fermat which says that a prime p = I (mod 4) can be expressed, essentially uniquely, as a sum of two integer squares (thus 5 = 2? + 12,97 = 9? + 43, etc,). In fact the behavior of prime ideals under extensions of this sort is one of the central problems of algebraic number theory. Let f: A > B, aand 5 be as before. Then Proposition 1.17. i) a € a’, 6 2 b*; ii) Be = Be, at = att; iii) If C is the set of contracted ideals in A and if E is the set of extended ideals in B, then C = {ala®* = a}, E = {6|6° = 5}, and at at is a bijective map of C onto E, whose inverse is 8 -> b*, Proof. i) is trivial, and ii) follows from i). ifi) If aC, then a = b°.= be = a*; conversely if a = a* then a is the contraction of a‘. Similarly for E. Exercise 1.18. If 0,, a, are ideals of A and if b,, 6, are ideals of B, then (a1 + a2)° = af + 0%, (By + Be)? 2 BF + 55, (Na) Sofas, - (6,95,) = F055, (ayaa) = af (6 b2)° 2 bibs, (ay:a2)° S (@f:a§), (Bi:ba)? S (bf:59), r@y s r(a*), r(6)° = r(6*) The set of ideals Eis closed under sum and product, and C is closed under the other three operations. EXERCISES 1, Let x be a nilpotent element of a ring A. Show that 1 + xisaunit of 4. Deduce that the sum of a nilpotent element and a unit is a unit. 2, Let A be a ring and let A[x] be the ring of polynomials in an indeterminate x, with coefficients in 4. Let f= ao + ax +-+++ ax" dfx]. Prove thatEXERCISES lL i) fis a unit in A(x] < ao is a unit in A and a,...,a, are nilpotent. Of bo + bix +--+ byx™ is the inverse of f, prove by induction on r that @*+b_, = 0. Hence show that aq is nilpotent, and then use Ex. 1.] ii) fis nilpotent <= ao, a1, . ..5 dy are nilpotent. iii) fis a zero-divisor <> there exists a # 0 in A such that af = 0. [Choose a polynomial g = bo + bix +:++-+ byx™ of least degree m such that fy = 0. Then aabm = 0, hence dqg = 0 (because a,g annihilates f and has degree < m), Now show by induction that a,-.¢ = 0(0 f and g are primitive. Generalize the results of Exercise 2 to a polynomial ring A{, . .., x;] in several indeterminates. 4, In the ring A{x], the Jacobson radical is equal to the nilradical. 10. i. 12. 13. Let A be a ring and let A[[x] be the ring of formal power series f = Sao anx* with coefficients in .4. Show that i) fis a unit in A[(x]] = ao is a unit in A. ii) If f is nilpotent, then a, is nilpotent for all n > 0. Is the converse true? (See Chapter 7, Exercise 2.) iii) f belongs to the Jacobson radical of A{{x]] => a> belongs to the Jacobson radical of 4. iv) The contraction of a maximal ideal m of A{{x]] is a maximal ideal of 4, and m is generated by m* and x. v) Every prime ideal of A is the contraction of a prime ideal of A[[x]]. A ring A is such that every ideal not contained in the nilradical contains a non- Zero idempotent (that is, an element ¢ such that e? = e # 0). Prove that the nilradical and Jacobson radical of A are equal. Let 4 be a ring in which every element x satisfies x* = x for some m > 1 (depending on x). Show that every prime ideal in 4 is maximal. Let A be a ring # 0. Show that the set of prime ideals of A has minimal ele- ments with respect to inclusion. Let a be an ideal # (1) ina ring A, Show that a = r(a) = a is an intersection of prime ideals. Let A be a ring, 9 its nilradical. Show that the following are equivalent: i) A has exactly one prime ideal; ii) every element of A is either a unit or nilpotent; iii) A/® is a field. Aring A is Boolean if x* = x for all x A. In a Boolean ring A, show that i) 2x = O forall xe A; ii) every prime ideal p is maximal, and 4/p is a field with two elements; iii) every finitely generated ideal in A is principal. A local ring contains no idempotent # 0, 1. Construction of an algebraic closure of a field (E. Artin). Let X be a field and let E be the set of all irreducible monic polynomials f in one12 RINGS AND IDEALS indeterminate with coefficients in K. Let A be the polynomial ring over K generated by indeterminates x, one for each fe =. Let a be the ideal of A generated by the polynomials f(x;) for all fe E. Show that a # (1). Let m be a maximal ideal of A containing a, and let K; = A/m. Then K, is an extension field of K in which each f¢ = has a root. Repeat the construction with X; in place of K, obtaining a field Kz, and soon. Let L = Ue: Ky. Then L is a field in which each fe = splits completely into linear factors. Let K be the set of all elements of L which are algebraic over K. Then K is an algebraic closure of K. 14, Ina ring A, let ¥ be the set of all ideals in which every element is a zero-divisor. ‘Show that the set 5 has maximal elements and that every maximal element of Eis. a prime ideal. Hence the set of zero-divisors in A is a union of prime ideals. The prime spectrum of a ring 15. Let A be a ring and let X be the set of all prime ideals of 4. For each subset E of A, let V(E) denote the set of all prime ideals of A which contain E, Prove that i) if a is the ideal generated by E, then VE) = V(a) = V(r(a)). VO) = X, Vl) = 2. if (Eder is any family of subsets of 4, then v(Y B) = Ve. iv) Van) = V(ab) = V(a) U V(b) for any ideals a,b of 4. These results show that the sets V(E) satisfy the axioms for closed sets in a topological space. The resulting topology is called the Zariski topology. The topological space X is called the prime spectrum of A, and is written Spec (A). 16, Draw pictures of Spec (Z), Spec (R), Spec (C[x]), Spec (R[x]), Spec (ZEx). 17. For each fe A, let X; denote the complement of V(f) in X = Spec (A). The sets X; are open. Show that they form a basis of open sets for the Zariski topology, and that DAO X= Xess ii) X, = 2 = fis nilpotent; iii) X, = X = fisa unit; iv) X) = X, = (()) = 1); v) X is quasi-compact (that is, every open covering of X has a finite sub- covering). vi) More generally, each X; is quasi-compact. vii) An open subset of X is quasi-compact if and only if it is a finite union of sets X;. The sets X; are called basic open sets of X = Spec (A). [To prove (v), remark that it is enough to consider a covering of X by basic open sets X;, (i ¢ /). Show that the f, generate the unit ideal and hence that there is an equation of the form t=Deahk (ge A) tet where J is some finite subset of J. Then the X;, (i¢ J) cover X.]