If is a regular element of a ring in a right Noetherian ring and a nonzero right ideal had , cancellation would make an infinite direct sum of nonzero right ideals. Its finite partial sums contradict the ascending chain condition. Thus is an essential right ideal.
Past exam of the mathematics course of the University of Cambridge 2006 iii Paper 2 3 Solution Created 2026-10-03 Updated 2026-10-14
An essential right ideal intersects every nonzero right ideal nontrivially. A regular element of a ring is a two-sided non-zero-divisor: both and imply . Writing for the set of these elements, the classical right ring of quotients is a ring containing , with every invertible and every element of expressible as .
Goldie theorem states that a semiprime ring has a semisimple Artinian classical right ring of quotients if and only if it is a right Goldie ring: it satisfies the ascending chain condition on right annihilators and has finite uniform dimension. In particular, every semiprime ring that is a right Noetherian ring satisfies the theorem. We prove the requested case directly using the supplied assumption about essential right ideals.
First let . If a nonzero right ideal had , the sumwould be direct. Indeed, a finite relation gives , hence ; cancellation of repeats the argument. Each is a nonzero right ideal, so the partial sums form a strictly ascending chain. This contradicts right Noetherianity. Thus a regular principal right ideal in a right Noetherian ring is essential, and every right ideal containing is essential.
For and , putThis is an essential right ideal. To check this, take a nonzero right ideal . If , then . Otherwise is a nonzero right ideal, so it meets nontrivially; lifting an element of that intersection gives a nonzero element of . By the supplied assumption, contains some , givingThis is the right Ore condition. The set is multiplicatively closed, and the denominator cancellation condition holds because its elements are non-zero-divisors. Therefore Ore theorem constructs and embeds in it.
For every right ideal of ,Indeed, if , then . Contracting an ascending chain of right ideals of to therefore proves that is a right Noetherian ring.
Suppose is an essential right ideal of . For a nonzero right ideal of , choose . The right Ore condition gives a common right denominator for a finite expression of in , so there is withThus is an essential right ideal of . It contains a regular element of a ring, which becomes a unit in , and consequently .
Finally, for any right ideal of , choose by Zorn lemma a right ideal maximal subject to . Then is essential: a nonzero right ideal disjoint from would enlarge while keeping it disjoint from . Hence . Every submodule of the right regular module has a complement, making it a semisimple module. Since it is also Noetherian, it is a finite direct sum of simple modules. It is therefore Artinian, and is a semisimple Artinian ring. This is semisimplicity of a classical quotient from regular elements in essential ideals.
Suppose is a right Noetherian ring and every essential right ideal contains a regular element of a ring. Preimages of essential regular principal right ideals under left multiplication are essential, so they contain regular elements and prove the right Ore condition. In the classical right ring of quotients , every right ideal is generated by its contraction to , making right Noetherian. An essential right ideal of contracts to an essential right ideal of , hence contains a regular element and is all of . A maximal disjoint complement to any right ideal has essential sum with it, so every right ideal is complemented. The right regular module is therefore a finite direct sum of simple modules, making semisimple Artinian.