Stable Rings
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Jcwnulof Acre md Applied Algebra 4 (I 974) 31 P-336. (Q North-Holland Publishing Company STABLE RINGS Judith D. SALLY Northwestern University, Evunston, Ilk 60201, U.S.A. and Wolmer V. VASCONCELKX * Rurgers Universiry, New Bmnswick, NJ. 08903, U.S.A. Communic%tcd by f-f. Bass Received 18 October 1973 Contents 0. Introduction 3iY 1. Estimates t’or numbers of generators of ideals 320 2. Stability 323 3. Twogmcrated rings 327 4. Non-Noetherian “two~enerated” rings 333 5. Non-standard stable rings 334 References 336 0. hwoduction One of the objectives of this paper is the examination of the relritionship between the following properties of a Noetherian ring A : (i) every ideal of2 can be generated by two elements; (ii) every ideal of A is projective over its endomorphism ring. Bass [3] in his study of the rings for which every torsion-free module is a direct sum of ideals, proved that if A is a t dimensional reduced ring with finite integral closure, then (i) implies (ii). Using properties of the canonical ideal, our i%st obser- vation in [22] - which we have since learned was proved earlier by Drozd and KiriEenko [9] by direct methods -.- was that, under the same conditions,(i) and (ii) are equivalent. Fn this paper we will show (Sections 3,5) that (i) and (ii) are not equivalent - even for domains - but that mild conditions on A will give (i) implies (ii). * Partially supported by National Science Foundation Grant 33 133. 319 Study of ctjndition ii) leads to more general questions involving estimates for bounds on the number of generators of certain ideals (Section I ‘) and to an exis- tence theorem far rings s;itisfying (i) (Section 3). We call a Noetherian ring stoblc if tt satisfies (ii). In Section 2 we show that stable rings have (Krull) dimension at most f and th3t every I dimensional local Xlar=aulayring possesses “a high degree sf stability”; to be spe&k, there exists an integer N such that, for all ideals f which ajntain a nunzero divisor. Psi is prczjective over its endomorphism ring. Sectkxn 4 is 3 digression on non-Nfoetherian rings. It contains the proof that finitely generated ideals in Priifer domains of dimension 1 are two-generated. Throughout e A is a <:ummutative ring with 1. The term “1~31” includes Noetk- rian. The f;Fliowing notatkjn will be fixed. k(B) denotes the length af an ,&module B, tql) denotes the minimal number of generators uf an ideal I and. if I has dimen- sivn 0. v(r) denotes the multiptkity of 1. &I ) denotes the multipkity of the Jacab- son radial of It. We wish to express our 3ppre+zi3ticlnto E. Matlis for his helpful comments. 1. Estimates fat numbers of generators of ideals One of the key tools in our study is the 1dimensional case if 3 theorem of Rees 12I i that gives a bound fc,r the number of generators of certsin ideals in a local Mac3ulay ring. First. we give a new. simple proof af Rees’ theorem and then several applications. Proof. Ler M be the maximal idea1 of A. By passing to A(X), W&V) and IA&n as In [I% pp. l&71], we may assume that A,W is an infinite field. The proof is by induction on (i, the dimension of A. Assume d = 1. ,4/M infinite implies that &f has 3 superficial element of degree 1 r Le., there is 3 nonzero divisor x iu M such that .tiP = /#It +1 for some t > 0. We have X(&k4 ) = h(r/xl) = p(A) . Far X(AjxA ) = X(AjxA) + X(xA/‘xi=) - X(A/i) = X(A/xl) - X(AII) = h(f,kf) gives the first equality, and, if we take / = IMk for any k 2 t, we have XIA/~A)=X(MklMk+‘)=c((A). The exact sequence 321 gives Assume d > 1. A/M infinite and A/J Mac3ulay imply that there exists a nonzero divisor x in M with the properties that x is a superficial element of degree t of A and x is not in any prime minimal over I; cf. [ 19, (22X)]. Then xl = xA n I, and is exact. Now A/xA is a Macaulay ring of dimension d - 1. The choice of x ensures that I/x1 is a height 1 ideal in A/xA and that A/(1, x) A is Macaulay. Thus, by induc- tion, u(i) = u(l/xl) < p(A/xA) = p(A) . q As a coroHary we obtain a bound on the number of generators for ideals in a semilocal ring#of dimension 1 (cf. (2,6,4,X, 121). We wJ1 write u(A) = n if every ideal of A can be generated by N elements and some ideal of A cannot be generated by N - 1 elements. Corollary 1.2. There is u bound an the number ofgenerators for kieals in a 1dimen- sional semilocul ring A. In particular. ifall maximal ideals of A are of height 1, then t--l v(A)%A/N) ki (1 +v(A@)<cr(A) n (I + tiNi)), j=l j=l where N is the nilradical of A, and t is the smallest integer such that N’ = (0). Proof. Rem11t.hat p(A) = Xp(A&, where M ranges over all maximal ideals of height 1. Since it is clear that a O-dimensional local ring has a bound for the number of generators of all ideals, it is suftkient, by the Forster-Swan theorem [23] , to prove the second statement of the corollary for A a l-dimensional local ring with maximal ideal N. The proof is by induction on t. if t = 1, i.e., if N = (0), A is Macaulay and I fi (0 :A I) = (0) for all ideals I of A. We apply Theorem 1 .l to the ideal I+(O:, r)=f@(O :A f’) and conclude that tr(l) <, p(A). ksume t > 1. From the exact sequence I O-+N’-’ _*,a# -+A/h+ +(J it follows that By induct ion, Example 1.3. Let x and )’ be indeterminates over a field k, and Iet A =k[fx.+~)]/(x~,~~$ ‘Ihen &I) = I , but the bound &4/N) (1 + v(!V)) = 2 obtained in Corallary f 2 is attained. Example 1.4. Here is a simple example of a f dimensional Noetherian ring with no bound on the number of generators for ideals (cf. [B, 7) .) Let -Ye,x2, .x3 . be infinitely many indeterminates over a field k. JLet The ideals Pi = (xi”, xi’*, ._., xfwl )R are height 1 prime ideals of R. Let S =R -* UPi and ,4 =Rs. A smali computation shows that if a prime ideal Q af R is contained in UP,, then Q is contained in some Pj. Hence (0) and the Pi ate the drily prime ideals sf A. Since ail the prime ideals of A are finitely generated, 4 is Noetherian, I-dimensional and manifestly without bound on the number icsfgener- ators for ideals. Our f&al application of the one-dimensional case of Theorem 1.1 is the follow- ing. bf* it is sufficient to show that there is a number n such that u(p) 5 n for all prime ideals P # M, the maximal ideal of A. IRt x 1, x2 be a system of parameters fur A, iwe.,M is minhnat aver (X1, ~2)~ If P is any prime ideal of A, P #M, then (Xf, x2) !$ P so, say x1 $ P. We have that 0 + P/x 1P + A/.x 1A is exact, hence u(P) = v(P/x*P)I H1 : where q is the bound obtained in Corollary 1.3 for the local ring A/.x 1A. If n2 is the bound fsr A/qA, then we rnpy take n = max(q. nr)* tl Note that the same prmf shows that P-primary ideals, P f M, have a bounded number of generators. J.D. Sdly, W. V. Vascmcelos, Stable rings 323 Remark 1.6. Macaulay’s examples (cf. [ 1] ) show that Corollary 1 S is no longer valid for higherdimensional local rings. It is afso not valid for global Noetherian rings of dimension 2. Remark 1.7. If A is a Zdimensional affine ring, there is a bound for the number of generators of prime ideals. Roof. We may assume that A is a domain finitely generated over the field k. By the Noether normalization theorem, there exist elements X,J’ in A, algebraically inde- pendent over k, such that A is a finite k [x. y] -module. Consider a presentation k[X.,?] n --z A + 0 of A9 and let P be a prime ideal of A. (We may assume that P is not maximal since, by the Nullstellensatz, a bound already exists for those.} Consider the exact sequence @-+(P)-+k(u - . y]” -4/P-+0 . Clearly, the projective dimension of A/P over k [x,y] is at most 1. Thus TV -I (P) is a projective and, therefore, free k I-u,y] -module of rank <, n. 2. St&My In analogy with LipmbJs terminology in [ 1S] , we call an ideal I of a ring A stable rf I is projective over its endomorphism ring End,(r). The ring A is stable if every ideal of A is stable. Note that if A is Noetherian and B is a faithfully flat A-algebra. then I is stable in A if and only if ,& is stable in B. Also note that if A is Noetherian, then I is stable in A if and only if /A, is stable in A,, for all maximal ideals M of A.