Past exam of the mathematics course of the University of Cambridge 2018 iii Paper 101 4 a Solution Created 2026-10-03 Updated 2026-10-05
A ring is a Noetherian ring if it satisfies the ascending chain condition on ideals: every chaineventually becomes constant. Equivalently, every ideal has a finite generating set of an ideal. To see this equivalence, if an ideal were not finitely generated, one could repeatedly choose an element outside the ideal generated by the preceding choices, producing a strictly ascending chain. Conversely, the union of an ascending chain is an ideal; if it is generated by finitely many elements, all of them lie in one term of the chain, and every later term equals that term.
A ring is an Artinian ring if it satisfies the descending chain condition on ideals: every chaineventually becomes constant. These are stabilization conditions on all ideals, not merely on principal ideals.
Past exam of the mathematics course of the University of Cambridge 2018 iii Paper 101 4 b Solution Created 2026-10-03 Updated 2026-10-05
Yes: is Noetherian. We prove Noetherianity of a formal power series ring directly, using only the equivalence in part (a). Let , a formal power series ring, and fix an ideal . For , let be the set of coefficients of in elements of . It is an ideal of , because coefficient extraction is additive and respects multiplication by constants. Multiplication by givesSince is Noetherian, there is an with for all . Each , for , has a finite generating set of an ideal . Choose whose coefficient of is . If , use no generators at that index.
We claim that these finitely many generate over . Given , start with and recursively construct . For , express the coefficient of in as , with , and subtract to obtain . For , use and subtractto cancel that coefficient. Every step involves a finite sum and leaves a residual still in .
For each , define the formal power seriesThe residual after the th cancellation lies in , so comparison of each coefficient gives the exact identityThe right side is a finite -linear combination of the chosen generators. No assertion that arbitrary ideals are closed under limits is being used: the equality is verified coefficient by coefficient, and the multipliers belong to . Thus every ideal of is finitely generated, proving
Past exam of the mathematics course of the University of Cambridge 2018 iii Paper 101 4 c Solution Created 2026-10-03 Updated 2026-10-05
Yes. Taking the constant coefficient defines a surjective ring homomorphismIts kernel of a ring homomorphism is , so the first isomorphism theorem for rings gives .
We prove the needed preservation result. If is a Noetherian ring and is an ideal, any ascending chain of ideals in lifts under the quotient ring homomorphism to an ascending chain of ideals in . The lifted chain stabilizes; surjectivity makes the original chain stabilize as well. Hence every quotient ring of a Noetherian ring is Noetherian.
Past exam of the mathematics course of the University of Cambridge 2018 iii Paper 101 4 d Solution Created 2026-10-03 Updated 2026-10-05
No. For example, take , any field. It is an Artinian ring, since its only ideals are zero and itself. In the formal power series ring , however,is a strictly descending chain of ideals. The inclusion is strict because has a nonzero coefficient of , whereas every element of has that coefficient zero. Thus fails the descending chain condition and is not Artinian.
The same argument works for any nonzero coefficient ring : the coefficient in cannot be produced by a multiple of . Therefore is never Artinian when . The zero ring is the harmless exception.
Past exam of the mathematics course of the University of Cambridge 2018 iii Paper 101 4 e Solution Created 2026-10-03 Updated 2026-10-05
No. Take over a field , and inside takeThis is a subring containing : its elements have arbitrary constant coefficient in as polynomials in , and every positive-degree coefficient is divisible by ; that condition is preserved by sums and products. The ring is Noetherian. Indeed, a nonzero ideal of has an element of least degree, and division by shows that every element of the ideal is a multiple of . Thus is a principal ideal domain, and its ideals are finitely generated.
In , let . These form an ascending chain. We show that . If it belonged, we could writeCancel in the integral domain , then apply the evaluation homomorphism . Every becomes a scalar in , so this would givewhich is impossible by comparison of degrees. Hence for every , andThis is a constant-plus-ideal non-Noetherian subring construction: the restricted coefficients prevent a finite list of positive powers of from generating all the required powers.
Past exam of the mathematics course of the University of Cambridge 2018 iii Paper 101 5 a Solution Created 2026-10-03 Updated 2026-10-05
A Dedekind domain is a Noetherian ring which is an integral domain, is an integrally closed domain, and has Krull dimension one. Explicitly, every ideal is finitely generated; every element of the fraction field that is an integral element over already belongs to ; and every nonzero prime ideal is a maximal ideal, with itself not a field.
With this convention, an equivalent local characterization is that is a Noetherian integral domain that is not a field and whose localization at a prime ideal is a discrete valuation ring for every nonzero prime ideal . The integrally closed domain condition rules out singularities such as those represented by the subring , where is integral but missing.
Some conventions also include fields by allowing Krull dimension at most one; the conclusions about ideals below remain valid under that convention.
Past exam of the mathematics course of the University of Cambridge 2018 iii Paper 101 5 b Solution Created 2026-10-03 Updated 2026-10-05
The unique factorization of ideals in a Dedekind domain states that every nonzero proper ideal of a Dedekind domain has a factorizationwhere the are distinct nonzero prime ideals and the are positive integers. The prime ideals and their exponents are unique up to reordering. The unit ideal is the empty product; the zero ideal is excluded.
Write for the prime-ideal valuation in a Dedekind domain, namely the exponent of in this factorization, with zero assigned when is absent. The associated containment rule isLarger exponents give smaller ideals, just as higher divisibility gives smaller principal ideals in . The theorem concerns unique factorization of ideals; it does not assert unique factorization of elements or that these ideals are principal.