On the Theory of Primitive Rings

Let A be an indiscrete locally compact primitive ring having minimal left ideals.Algebraically, A may be regarded as a dense ring of linear operators containing nonzero linear operators of finite rank on a vector space E over a division ring K, and furthermore if A is simple, then A contains only linear operators of finite rank.The topology of A induces topologies on F and A" in a natural way, so that K becomes a locally compact division ring and E a locally compact vector space over K. Theorems about locally compact division rings and locally compact vector spaces imply that if K is indiscrete, then E is necessarily finite dimensional over K, and thus A is the ring of all linear operators on a finite-dimensional vector space over a locally compact division ring.Kaplansky proved that if A has characteristic zero, then K is indeed indiscrete, but he showed by an example that E could be infinite dimensional.Kaplansky remarked [9, p. 459], however, that if A is simple, it seemed unlikely that F could be infinite dimensional, since otherwise "completeness appears to require the presence of linear transformations with infinitedimensional range."Our principal result in 1 is the verification of this conjecture; however, our argument is based not on the fact that a locally compact ring is complete, but rather on the fact that a locally compact space is a Baire space and on the symmetry between minimal left and right ideals in a simple ring.In 2 we shall present certain results about locally compact vector spaces over discrete division rings; these enable us to prove that a locally compact, indiscrete, central primitive algebra having minimal left ideals is finite dimensional provided its scalar field either is indiscrete, has characteristic zero, or is uncountably infinite.However, there is a very natural example of a locally compact, indiscrete, infinitedimensional central primitive algebra having minimal left ideals over a discrete countably infinite field of prime characteristic.1. Locally compact simple rings having minimal left ideals.We begin with a summary of the structure theory of a primitive ring A having minimal left ideals.Let e be a minimal idempotent of A, that is, an idempotent such that Ae is a minimal left ideal, or equivalently, such that eA is a minimal right ideal.Then eAe is a division ring, the additive group Ae becomes a right eAe-\tctor space by defining scalar multiplication to be the restriction of multiplication on A to

This series aims to report new developments in mathematical research and teaching -quickly, informally and at a high level.The type of material considered for publication includes: 1.Preliminary drafts of original papers and monographs 2. Lectures on a new field, or presenting a new angle on a classical field 3. Seminar work-outs 4. Reports of meetings, provided they are a) of exceptional interest or b) devoted to a single topic.

Let R be a primitive ring with involution *. Thus R may be considered as an irreducible ring of endomorphisms of an additive abelian group V, so that D=HomR(V, V) is a division ring. Let C be the center of D. We shall furthermore assume that CRCR. It can be shown that an involution -y--+is induced in C which has the property that 1yx = (tyx*)* for all xER. The involution * is of the first kind if -y-+-7 is the identity mapping and is of the second kind if there is a -y Oe C such that fy = -y. The set of symmetric elements of R will be denoted by S. We now assume that S satisfies a nontrivial generalized polynomial identity over C (in the sense of Amitsur). This means that there exists a nonzero element f(xl, x2, * * *, x.) in the so-called C-universal product R(x) of the C-algebra R and the free C-algebra C[X,, x2,* * *, x,, ... ] in noncommuting indeterminants xi, X2, *. * Xn, ...* such thatf(s1, S2, * * *, sn) = 0 for all SI S2, *.*.*, SnCS. For more precise details concerning the above notions we refer the reader to [1, ?4], and [2, ?3]. The usual linearization process may be used so that we may assume without loss of generality that S satisfies a nontrivial generalized (homogeneous) multilinear identity of degree n in xi, x2, ,n:

On Algebraically Closed Models of Theories of Commutative Rings

In 1952, the late Professor T. Nakayama succeeded in constructing the Galois theory for finite dimensional simple ring extensions [7]. And, we believe, the theory was essentially due to the following proposition: If a simple ring A is Galois and finite over a simple subring B then A is B′-A-completely reducible for any simple intermediate ring B′ of A/B [7, Lemmas 1.1 and 1.2]. Moreover, as was established in [5], Nakayama’s idea was still efficient in considering the infinite dimensional Galois theory of simple rings.

Continuing the study of divisibility theory of arithmetical rings started in [1] and [2], we show that the divisibility theory of arithmetical rings with one minimal prime ideal is axiomatizable as Bezout monoids with one minimal m-prime filter. In particular, every Bezout monoid with one minimal m-prime filter is order-isomorphic to the partially ordered monoid with respect to inverse inclusion, of principal ideals in a Bezout ring with a smallest prime ideal. Although this result can be considered as a satisfactory answer to the divisibility theory of both semihereditary domains and valuation rings, the general representation theory of Bezout monoids is still open.

With F q a finite field of characteristic p , let [inline-graphic xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink" xlink:href="01i" /]( q ) be the category whose objects are functors from finite dimensional F q -vector spaces to [inline-graphic xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink" xlink:href="02i" /]-vector spaces. Friedlander and Suslin have introduced a category [inline-graphic xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink" xlink:href="03i" /] of "strict polynomial functors" which has the same relationship to [inline-graphic xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink" xlink:href="04i" /]( q ) that the category of rational GL m -modules has to the category of GL m ( F q )-modules. Our main theorem says that, for all finite objects F, G ∈ [inline-graphic xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink" xlink:href="05i" /], and all s , the natural restriction map from [inline-graphic xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink" xlink:href="06i" /] ( F ( k ) , G ( k ) ) to [inline-graphic xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink" xlink:href="07i" /] ( F, G ) is an isomorphism for all large enough k and q . Here F ( k ) denotes F twisted by the Frobenius k times. This combines with an analogous theorem of Cline, Parshall, Scott, and van der Kallen to show that, for all finite F, G ∈ [inline-graphic xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink" xlink:href="08i" /], and all s , evaluation on an m dimensional vector space V m induces an isomorphism from [inline-graphic xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink" xlink:href="09i" /] ( F, G ) to Ext s GL m ( F q ) ( F ( V m ), F ( V m )) for all large enough m and q . Thus group cohomology of the finite general linear groups has often been identified with MacLane (or Topological Hochschild) cohomology.

An outstanding unsolved problem in the theory of rings is the existence or non-existence of a simple nil ring. Such a ring cannot be locally nilpotent as is well known [ 5 ]. Hence, if a simple nil ring were to exist, it would follow that there exists a finitely generated nil ring which is not nilpotent. This seemed an unlikely situation until the appearance of Golod's paper [ 1 ] where a finitely generated, non-nilpotent ring is constructed for any d ≥ 2 generators over any field.

The classical approach to studying operator ideals using tensor norms mainly focuses on those tensor norms and operator ideals defined by means of ℓp spaces. In a previous paper, an interpolation space, defined via the real method and using ℓp spaces, was used to define a tensor norm, and the associated minimal operator ideals were characterized. In this paper, the next natural step is taken, that is, the corresponding maximal operator ideals are characterized. As an application, necessary and sufficient conditions for the coincidence of the maximal and minimal ideals are given. Finally, the previous results are used in order to find some new metric properties of the mentioned tensor norm.

In this chapter, we discuss several special types of modules that will make frequent appearances later. These include semisimple modules, artinian modules, and torsionfree modules, which have prototypes in vector spaces, finite abelian groups, and torsionfree abelian groups, respectively. That special types of modules have useful roles in the study of arbitrary modules may be seen already in the case of abelian groups (i.e., ℤ-modules). In studying an arbitrary abelian group, an almost reflexive first step is to look at its torsion part (i.e., the torsion subgroup) and its torsionfree part (i.e., the factor group modulo the torsion subgroup), since entirely different techniques are available (and needed) for dealing with torsion groups and torsionfree groups. On the torsionfree side, vector spaces make an appearance due to the facts that the torsionfree divisible abelian groups are exactly the vector spaces over ℚ and that every torsionfree abelian group can be embedded in a divisible one. On the torsion side, many questions can be reduced to the case of finite abelian groups, since every torsion abelian group is a directed union of finite subgroups. In studying torsion abelian groups, one also reduces to the case of p -groups for various primes p . Vector spaces make another appearance here, since in an abelian p -group the set of elements of order p (together with 0) forms a vector space over ℤ/ p ℤ.

A Galois theory of commutative rings

Let R be an associative ring with a unit and N be a left R-module. The set MR(N) = {f: N → N | f(rx) = rf(x), r ∈ R, x ∈ N} is a near-ring with respect to the operations of addition and composition and contains the ring ER(N) of all endomorphisms of the R-module N. The R-module N is endomorphic if MR(N) = ER(N). We call an Abelian group endomorphic if it is an endomorphic module over its endomorphism ring. In this paper, we find endomorphic Abelian groups in the classes of all separable torsion-free groups, torsion groups, almost completely decomposable torsion-free groups, and indecomposable torsion-free groups of rank 2.

The development of the theory of local rings has been greatly stimulated by the importance of the applications to algebraic geometry, but it is none the less true that this stimulus has produced a theory which, on aesthetic grounds, is somewhat unsatisfactory. In the first place, if a local ring Q arises in the ordinary way from a geometric problem, then Qwill have the same characteristic as its residue field. It is partly for this reason that our knowledge of equicharacteristic local rings is much more extensive than it is of those local rings which present the case of unequal characteristics. Again, in the geometric case, the integral closure of Q in its quotient field will be a finite Q-module. Here, once more, we have a special situation which it would be desirable to abandon from the point of view of a general abstract theory.

It was shown in Huber [4; Theorem 3.3] that an R-module E is slender as a module over its endomorphism ring S = EndR E if it is of the form E = M(IN) for some R-module M. This had important consequences for questions of E-reflexivity. In Mader [6; Lemma 5.1] it was shown that the abelian group E = M ∞i=1 Z(pi)is slender over S = End E and this was a key step in proving that the completion of a group A of non-measurable cardinality equipped with the direct-sum-of-cyclics topology of D’Este [1] is algebraically the group HomS(HomZ (A, E), E). At the Honolulu Conference on Abelian Group Theory 1982/83, Martin Huber suggested to me that [6; Lemma 5.1] should be extendable to more general direct sums. In this note we prove such a theorem and use it to characterize completely the totally projective p-groups which are slender as modules over their endomorphism rings.

The projective dimension of an abelian group with torsion reduced part, as a module over its endomorphism ring, is determined.In particular, a group of projective dimension 2 is exhibited.Any abelian group G may be considered as a module over its endomorphism ring E. It then is natural to study the properties of G as an P-module.In particular, you can try to compute the various homological dimensions of G.For example, in [6] we showed that a /J-group G is flat over E (i.e. has weak dimension zero) unless its reduced part is bounded and its divisible part is nonzero.In [7] we characterized those G which are injective over P. Douglas and Farahat [2] showed that if G is torsion, then dimEG < 1, where dim£G denotes the projective dimension of G over P. Later [3] they