Ideal (ring theory)

In ring theory, a branch of abstract algebra, an ideal is a special subset of a ring. The ideal concept generalizes in an appropriate way some important properties of integers like "even number" or "multiple of 3".

For instance, in rings one studies prime ideals instead of prime numbers, one defines coprime ideals as a generalization of coprime numbers, and one can prove a generalized Chinese remainder theorem about ideals. In a certain class of rings important in number theory, the Dedekind domains, one can even recover a version of the fundamental theorem of arithmetic: in these rings, every nonzero ideal can be uniquely written as a product of prime ideals.

An ideal can be used to construct a factor ring in a similar way as a normal subgroup in group theory can be used to construct a factor group. The concept of an order ideal in order theory is derived from the notion of ideal in ring theory.

History

Ideals were first proposed by Dedekind in 1876 in the third edition of his book Vorlesungen über Zahlentheorie (German: Lectures on number theory). They were a generalization of the concept of ideal numbers developed by Ernst Kummer. Later the concept was expanded by David Hilbert and especially Emmy Noether.

Definitions

Let R be a ring and with (R, +) the abelian group of the ring. Then a subset I of R is called right ideal if

(I, +) is a subgroup of (R, +)
xr is in I for all x in I and all r in R

and left ideal if

(I, +) is a subgroup of (R, +)
rx is in I for all x in I and all r in R

The left ideals in R are exactly the right ideal in the opposite ring R^o and vice versa. When R is a commutative ring the notion of left ideal and right ideal coincide and the two-sided ideal is simply called ideal. To keep the following definitions shorter we will only consider commutative rings.

We call I a proper ideal if it is a proper subset of R, that is, I does not equal R.

If A is any subset of the ring R, then we can define the ideal generated by A to be the smallest ideal of R containing A; it is denoted by <A> or (A) and contains all finite sums of the form

r₁a₁s₁ + ··· + r_na_ns_n

with each r_i and s_i in R and each a_i in A. The ideal is said to be finitely generated if the generating set A is finite, that is we can write every element x of I as

x = \sum_{k=1}^{n} r_{k} a_{k}

where a_k is an element of A and {r_k : k = 1, ..., n} is a fixed finite subset of R.

Examples

The even integers form an ideal in the ring Z of all integers; it is usually denoted by 2Z. This is because the sum of any even integers is even, and the product of any integer with an even integer is also even.
In the ring Z of integers, every ideal can be generated by a single number (so Z is a principal ideal domain), and the ideal determines the number up to its sign. The concepts of "ideal" and "number" are therefore almost identical in Z (and in any principal ideal domain).
The set of all polynomials with real coefficients which are divisible by the polynomial x² + 1 is an ideal in the ring of all polynomials.
The set of all n-by-n matrices whose last column is zero forms a left ideal in the ring of all n-by-n matrices. It is not a right ideal. The set of all n-by-n matrices whose last row is zero forms a right ideal but not a left ideal.
The ring C(R) of all continuous functions f from R to R contains the ideal of all continuous functions f such that f(1) = 0. Another ideal in C(R) is given by those functions which vanish for large enough arguments, i.e. those continuous functions f for which there exists a number L > 0 such that f(x) = 0 whenever |x| > L.
{0} and R are ideals in every ring R. If R is commutative, then R is a field if and only if it has precisely two ideals, {0} and R.

Types of Ideals

To simplify the description all rings are assumed to be commutative. The non-commutative case is discussed in detail in the respective articles

Ideals are important because they appear as the kernels of ring homomorphisms and allow one to define factor ring. Different types of ideals are studied because they can be used to construct different type of factor rings.

Maximal ideal: A proper ideal I is called a maximal ideal if there exists no other proper ideal J with I a subset of J. The factor ring of a maximal ideal is a field.
Prime ideal: A proper ideal I is called a prime ideal if for any a and b in R, if ab is in I, then at least one of a and b is in I. The factor ring of a prime ideal is an integral domain.
Primary ideal: An ideal I is called primary ideal if for all a and b in R, if ab is in I, then at least one of a and bⁿ is in I for some natural number n. Every prime ideal is primary, but not conversely.
Principal ideal: An ideal generated by one element.
Primitive ideal: is the annihilator of a simple left module. A right primitive ideal is defined similarly. Note that (despite the name) left and right primitive ideals are always two-sided ideals. Factor rings constructed with primitive ideals are primitive rings.

Properties

An ideal is proper if and only if it does not contain 1.

The ideals can be partially ordered via subset inclusion and therefore as a consequence of Zorn's lemma every ideal is contained in a maximal ideal.

Because zero belongs to it, any ideal is nonempty.

The ring R can be considered as a left module over itself, and the left ideals of R are then seen as the submodules of this module. Similarly, the right ideals are submodules of R as a right module over itself, and the two-sided ideals are submodules of R as a bimodule over itself. If R is commutative, then all three sorts of module are the same, just as all three sorts of ideal are the same.

Ideal operations

The sum and the intersection of ideals is again an ideal; with these two operations as join and meet, the set of all ideals of a given ring forms a lattice. Also, the union of two ideals is a subset of the sum of those two ideal. The reason for this is: for any element a inside an ideal, we can write it as a+0, or 0+a, therefore, it is contained in the sum as well.

The product of two ideals I and J is defined to be the ideal IJ generated by all products of the form ab with a in I and b in J. It is contained in the intersection of I and J.

Mathematically, the sum and product of ideals are defined as follows. For I and J ideals of R,

I+J:=\{a+b \,|\, a \in I \mbox{ and } b \in J\}

and

IJ:=\{a_1b_1+ \dots + a_nb_n \,|\, a_i \in I \mbox{ and } b_i \in J, i=1, 2, \dots, n; \mbox{ for } n=1, 2, \dots\}.

Important properties of these ideal operations are recorded in the Noether isomorphism theorems.