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ID: past-exam-of-the-algebra-analysis-and-differential-equations-2-course-of-the-university-of-oxford/2009/algebra/3

Use ordinary matrix addition and multiplication on . Sums and products of polynomials in remain such polynomials, and they commute because powers of the same matrix commute. The identity is . Evaluation is a surjective unital algebra homomorphism over . It is unique among maps fixing the scalar matrices and sending to .
The scalar condition is needed for the word “unique”: as an unrestricted ring-homomorphism assertion over an arbitrary field, prescribing only the image of does not suffice. For example, over with a real scalar matrix , conjugating every coefficient gives another unital ring homomorphism with the same image of . The intended polynomial-evaluation map is the -algebra map just defined.
The kernel of a ring homomorphism is an ideal of the principal ideal domain . It is nonzero because finitely many powers of must become linearly dependent in the finite-dimensional matrix space. Its unique monic generator is precisely the minimal polynomial : division by shows that a polynomial killing has zero remainder, by minimality. Hence and .
If , Bézout's identity gives ; evaluation gives . Conversely an inverse in has form , so , which forces . Thus invertibility in this ring is exactly coprimality with the minimal polynomial.

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