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 (group rings, division rings, universal enveloping algebras); 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.
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, many results can be viewed as belonging to more than one of the three. 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.
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. Important examples of commutative rings can be constructed as rings of polynomials and their factor rings; these examples are basic objects of study in algebraic geometry. In commutative ring theory, numbers are often replaced by ideals, and the definition of 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. The relations between these classes can be summarised as follows:
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 Isomorphism theorems for rings Nakayama's lemma
Structure theorems The Artin–Wedderburn theorem determines the structure of semisimple rings The Jacobson density theorem determines the structure of primitive rings Goldie's theorem determines the structure of semiprime Goldie rings The Zariski–Samuel theorem determines the structure of a commutative principal ideal ring The Hopkins–Levitzki theorem gives necessary and sufficient conditions for a Noetherian ring to be an Artinian ring Morita theory consists of theorems determining when two rings have "equivalent" module categories Cartan–Brauer–Hua theorem gives insight on the structure of division rings Wedderburn's little theorem states that finite domains are fields
Other The Skolem–Noether theorem characterizes the automorphisms of simple rings
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 . It turns out that the polynomial ring over a field k has dimension n. The fundamental theorem of dimension theory states that the following numbers coincide for a noetherian local ring : The Krull dimension of R. The minimum number of the generators of the -primary ideals. The dimension of the graded ring (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 , there exists a finite chain of prime ideals 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 and 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 ,
where is the height of .
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 the set of isomorphism classes of finitely generated projective modules over R; let also subsets consisting of those with constant rank n. (The rank of a module M is the continuous function .) is usually denoted by Pic(R). It is an abelian group called the Picard group of R. If R is an integral domain with the field of fractions F of R, then there is an exact sequence of groups:
where 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.
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 ; 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 that contain no non-trivial proper (two-sided) ideals, yet 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, is not necessarily an ideal unless the ring is commutative. Specifically, the set of all nilpotent elements in the ring of all 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; irrespective of whether the ring is commutative.