An algebraic group is connected when its underlying Zariski topology is a connected space. An unipotent algebraic group is a linear algebraic group whose elements, in a faithful matrix realization, satisfy that is nilpotent. A reductive algebraic group, in the connected convention, is a connected linear algebraic group whose unipotent radical is trivial: it has no nontrivial connected normal unipotent algebraic subgroup.
Let . It is a finite-dimensional associative algebra, and . The latter is the nonempty open subset where the determinant on is nonzero. Since the affine space is irreducible, this open subset is irreducible and hence connected. It is a linear algebraic group: within it is cut out by the linear equations of preserving the vertex summands and commuting with the arrow maps. Thus the automorphism group is connected.
By the Krull–Schmidt theorem, write , with pairwise nonisomorphic indecomposables . The Fitting lemma makes each a local algebra. Its residue division algebra is : every element of a finite-dimensional division algebra over the algebraically closed field has an eigenvalue for left multiplication, and subtracting that scalar gives a noninvertible element, hence zero.
The standard radical description of the endomorphism algebra of a Krull-Schmidt decomposition therefore gives
Concretely, maps between nonisomorphic summands lie in the radical, while on each isotypic block one reduces all entries modulo the local radical. The off-diagonal rule follows because a composition cannot be a unit for : it would split off the indecomposable , forcing an isomorphism. The finite-dimensional radical description then identifies the kernel of this block reduction with . Put . The Jacobson radical of the finite-dimensional algebra is nilpotent, so every is a unit and is unipotent on . Also is closed, being the translate of the linear subspace , and normal, being the kernel of
This map has an explicit algebraic section: after fixing the direct-sum decomposition, a matrix acts on the copies by . These block actions give a subgroup with trivial intersection with . Every unit is uniquely a product of an element of and one of . Hence
This Levi decomposition of a quiver automorphism group holds in every characteristic; the section is constructed directly from the multiplicity spaces.
Work over and take a nonzero commutative unital Banach algebra , with . A character of an algebra is a nonzero multiplicative complex linear functional . It satisfies . Moreover : otherwise would be invertible, although its image under is zero. The bound on the spectrum of an element therefore gives , proving automatic continuity of characters and .
Every proper maximal ideal of is closed. Indeed its closure is an ideal; if this closure were all of , would contain an element within distance less than one of . Such an element is invertible by the Neumann series, forcing . Thus the closure is proper and maximality makes it equal to . The quotient Banach space , with its quotient Banach algebra structure, is a complex normed division algebra. By the Gelfand-Mazur theorem, it is , so the quotient map gives a character of an algebra with kernel . Conversely, the kernel of every character of an algebra is a maximal ideal, since the character is onto . The Zorn lemma supplies a maximal ideal containing every proper ideal, so the character space of an algebra is nonempty.
These facts give the exact relation between the character space and the spectrum of an element:
One inclusion was proved above. For the other, if is noninvertible, the principal ideal it generates is proper because is commutative. Contain it in a maximal ideal and use its corresponding character of an algebra to obtain .
Give the Gelfand topology, namely its subspace topology from the weak-star topology on . In the closed unit ball of , it is the intersection of the closed conditions
Consequently Banach-Alaoglu theorem makes a compact Hausdorff space. For every , define the Gelfand transform . This is a continuous function on by definition of the Gelfand topology. The Gelfand representation theorem gives a contractive unital algebra homomorphism over a field
Multiplicativity and linearity follow by evaluating at each character of an algebra; the supremum norm equality follows from the preceding spectrum of an element identity. Its kernel is
the Jacobson radical. Equivalently, its elements have spectrum of an element . Thus is injective precisely when is a semisimple commutative Banach algebra, and it gives a faithful continuous representation of as a function algebra. Its range contains the constants and separates points of , because distinct characters of an algebra differ on some . An arbitrary Banach algebra need not have an isometric or surjective Gelfand transform, nor a uniformly dense range: those conclusions require further hypotheses.
For the Banach algebra on a nonempty compact Hausdorff space , all characters of an algebra are evaluation characters. To see this, let be a maximal ideal. If its elements had no common zero, compactness would supply with no common zero. The continuous function belongs to , is strictly positive on , and has a continuous reciprocal. It is therefore invertible, a contradiction. Hence all elements of vanish at some , so and maximality gives equality. The associated character of an algebra must be : since , its value on is .
The map is a continuous bijection , using separation of points by continuous functions. Compactness and the Hausdorff property make it a homeomorphism. Under this identification the Gelfand transform is , so it is the identity representation of , in particular an isometric onto map. The empty gives the zero algebra, whose empty character space represents the zero function space; it was excluded by the nonzero unital convention above.
Now let be a commutative unital C-star algebra. The stronger conclusion is the Commutative Gelfand--Naimark theorem: the Gelfand transform is an isometric onto C-star homomorphism . We prove the additional assertions without assuming this conclusion.
First every character of an algebra respects the C-star algebra involution. If , the elements , , are unitary elements of a C-star algebra, and their norm is one by the C-star identity. Continuity and multiplicativity give . Thus for every real , forcing to be real. Writing with and self-adjoint gives . Therefore the range of is closed under complex conjugation.
Every element of commutative is a Normal element of a C-star algebra. For a normal , use the C-star identity, and then the same identity for the self-adjoint element , to obtain
Its powers are also normal, so . The spectral radius formula gives , hence . The Gelfand transform is therefore an isometry, and its range is complete and closed in the supremum norm. It contains constants, separates points and is closed under complex conjugation. The complex Stone-Weierstrass theorem makes that range dense, hence all of .
The approximation step in Stone-Weierstrass theorem can also be seen directly here. For a unital conjugation-closed point-separating subalgebra , the real-valued part of its uniform closure is closed under absolute values, by polynomial approximation to on bounded intervals, hence under pointwise maxima and minima. Its real-valued functions separate points. Given real and , for each an affine rescaling of a separating function produces agreeing with at ; take a constant when . For fixed , finitely many neighbourhoods of where cover . Their maximum exceeds everywhere and agrees with at , hence is less than near . Finitely many of these latter neighbourhoods cover ; the minimum of their lies between and everywhere. Approximate real and imaginary parts separately. This proves the density used above and completes the C-star algebra conclusion.
The Jacobson radical is , where runs over the maximal right ideals of ; equivalently, it is the intersection of the annihilators of all simple modules. It is a two-sided ideal. A projective module has the lifting property against every surjective R-module homomorphism. A finitely generated module is a projective module precisely when it is a direct summand of a finitely generated free module. An indecomposable module is nonzero and admits no direct sum decomposition into two nonzero submodules.
To calculate the top of an indecomposable projective module, use the right Artinian ring hypothesis, namely the descending chain condition on right ideals. The Hopkins-Levitzki theorem gives finite composition length of the right regular module, hence of its submodule . Also is a nilpotent ideal, and is a semisimple ring. Thus the quotient module is a semisimple module; it is nonzero, since would imply for sufficiently large .
Suppose were not a simple module. A nontrivial direct sum decomposition of this semisimple module would give an idempotent that is neither zero nor the identity. Writing , the lifting property of the projective module gives with . The Fitting lemma for an indecomposable module of finite composition length says that is either invertible or a nilpotent element. Its induced map would then be invertible or a nilpotent element, respectively. Neither is possible for a nontrivial idempotent. Therefore is simple. This argument does not assume that an embedded projective module automatically splits off from the ambient module.
A block of an Artinian algebra is a nonzero two-sided direct summand determined by a primitive central idempotent : cannot be written as a sum of two nonzero orthogonal central idempotents. Its identity is . For a finite-dimensional associative algebra, the blocks of an Artinian algebra give its unique decomposition as a finite product of indecomposable algebras, or equivalently as a direct sum of two-sided ideals.
For the block of S3 in characteristic three, put , , and . The group algebra has basis for . In characteristic three,
Consequently is a two-sided nilpotent ideal, , and . A nilpotent ideal lies in the Jacobson radical, and a quotient that is a semisimple ring forces the reverse inclusion. Hence
Define orthogonal idempotents and . They sum to one, so the right regular module decomposes as
The two summands are the indecomposable projectives of S3 in characteristic three. Each direct summand is a projective module, with basis . Its quotient module modulo multiplication by is one-dimensional: the trivial representation for , and the sign representation for . Each is an indecomposable module, since two nonzero direct summands would each have nonzero quotient module modulo , contradicting its one-dimensional top. For additional detail, the successive factors of the radical series of a module are the trivial representation, sign representation, trivial representation for , and the sign representation, trivial representation, sign representation for . Indeed, modulo the relation reverses the -sign, whereas commutes with .
The center of an associative algebra is spanned by the conjugacy class sums , , and . Since and , this center of an associative algebra is
Its vector subspace is a square-zero ideal. If is a central idempotent, then and . Thus or and . There is no nontrivial central idempotent, so the whole group algebra is its single block. The two three-dimensional projective modules above are a decomposition of the regular module, not two blocks of an Artinian algebra.
First the product is also split. Write and . The ideal
is nilpotent: if , every product of of its factors vanishes. The quotient is
a product of full matrix algebras over , because each is split. A nilpotent ideal lies in the Jacobson radical, and a semisimple quotient forces the reverse inclusion, so is exactly the radical. Thus is a splitting field for finite group representations of the product.
For simple modules , Schur lemma and splitting give . The Jacobson density theorem therefore makes the image of on the full . Tensoring these maps shows that the product algebra acts on through its full endomorphism algebra. Hence this tensor product of group representations is simple.
On restriction to , it is a direct sum of copies of . If two external tensor products are isomorphic, their restrictions and the Jordan–Hölder theorem force ; restricting to similarly forces . The converse follows by tensoring the isomorphisms.
Finally, the p-regular conjugacy classes of are precisely pairs of such classes in the factors. The corrected result in part (b) counts as many simples for the product as pairs of simples for the two factors. Our pairwise nonisomorphic tensor products already attain that count, so they exhaust all simples. Thus , uniquely indexed by pairs of simple isomorphism classes.
For the left regular module, the radical series of a module is obtained by multiplying by powers of the Jacobson radical:
Products of matrix units show that
with and . Thus each step removes one subdiagonal, and the Loewy length of is .
For , let with a lower triangular matrix acting by the scalar . These are pairwise nonisomorphic simple modules, since the diagonal matrix units distinguish them.
Let be the ideal of strictly lower triangular matrices. It is nilpotent, and
is a semisimple algebra. Hence is the Jacobson radical; explicitly,
The weak Hilbert Nullstellensatz says that if a field is a finitely generated algebra over , then it is a finite algebraic extension of . Since every maximal ideal is prime, the nilradical is contained in the Jacobson radical .
Conversely, let be nonnilpotent. Then , and it is a finitely generated -algebra, so it has a maximal ideal . Its contraction to avoids . Moreover,
is a finitely generated -domain inside a finite algebraic extension of , hence is itself a field. Thus is maximal and does not contain . Therefore , proving
The Jacobson radical is the intersection of all maximal right ideals, equivalently the largest ideal annihilating every simple right module. The Artin–Wedderburn theorem gives
because is algebraically closed.
The descending chain stabilizes since is finite-dimensional. If , Nakayama lemma applied to the finite right module gives . Thus is nilpotent.
For , the Fitting lemma gives
for large . Indecomposability makes one summand zero, so is either invertible or nilpotent. In the latter case is invertible. This is the criterion that is a local ring.
Let . Reduction modulo defines
Since and the are pairwise nonisomorphic simples,
by Schur lemma. Arbitrary scalars on the direct summands lift to scalar identity maps on the , so is surjective.
If , then . A product of such maps sends into , so is nilpotent. A nilpotent ideal lies in the Jacobson radical, while the semisimplicity of the quotient gives the reverse inclusion. Hence
This is exactly the definition of a basic algebra.
For a commutative ring , the Jacobson radical is
Let be integral. If is maximal in , then its contraction is maximal in . Therefore every belongs to every , and
Conversely, the Lying-over theorem puts a maximal ideal of above every maximal ideal of . Hence an element of lies in every , proving
This is the Jacobson radical under an integral extension formula.
For a simple -module , matrix units show that every nonzero vector of generates all coordinates, so is a simple -module. Conversely, if is simple over the matrix ring, is a simple -module and
through the maps induced by and . These constructions are inverse on isomorphism classes; this is the basic Morita equivalence for a matrix ring.
The Jacobson radical is the intersection of annihilators of all simple left modules. On , a matrix annihilates every vector exactly when each entry annihilates . Intersecting over all simple gives
Semi-local ring 2026-10-14
A ring is semilocal when its quotient by the Jacobson radical is a semisimple ring that is Artinian. Equivalently, that quotient is a right Artinian ring: it has zero Jacobson radical, and the Artinian structure theorem makes it semisimple. A commutative ring is semilocal exactly when it has finitely many maximal ideals.
Semisimple Banach algebra 2026-10-14
A Banach algebra is semisimple when its Jacobson radical is zero. This does not assert that every quasinilpotent element is zero. For example, the algebra of bounded operators on a Banach space of dimension greater than one is semisimple, but contains nonzero square-zero rank-one operators. This notion also does not require the finite-dimensional direct-sum decomposition associated with a semisimple algebra.
Semisimple commutative Banach algebra Created 2026-10-06 Updated 2026-10-14
A commutative Banach algebra is semisimple when its Jacobson radical is zero. For a complex unital Banach algebra this is equivalent to injectivity of the Gelfand transform. This condition concerns the Jacobson radical; it does not assert a finite product decomposition as in finite-dimensional semisimple algebra theory.
For a finite-dimensional module over an algebraically closed field, write a Krull-Schmidt decomposition with distinct indecomposable types. Each endomorphism ring of is a local endomorphism ring with residue division algebra , by the finite-dimensional division algebra over an algebraically closed field result. Modulo the Jacobson radical of , the blocks of one type become and all maps between different types vanish. A composite through a different indecomposable type cannot be invertible, since that would make one type a direct summand of the other. This yields the displayed product and the Levi decomposition of a quiver automorphism group.
The finite intersections of maximal right ideals of a right Artinian ring have a minimal member by the descending chain condition. Intersecting it with any other maximal right ideal changes nothing, so it equals the Jacobson radical. If that radical is zero, the diagonal map from the regular module into a finite direct sum of its simple quotients is injective. A submodule of a finite direct sum of simple modules is semisimple and has finite length. This proves semisimplicity of the regular module without assuming Noetherianity first.
A field is a splitting field for a finite group if every simple module over its group algebra is absolutely simple: it remains simple over every extension field. Equivalently, the quotient by the Jacobson radical is a product of full matrix algebras over . In characteristic , containing all th roots of unity, where and , is sufficient. This is the modular splitting-field theorem; it is substantially stronger than merely having eigenvalues for one chosen group element.
For a nonzero finitely generated indecomposable module that is a projective module over a right Artinian ring , its top is a simple module. The Jacobson radical is a nilpotent ideal, so the top is nonzero; the quotient is a semisimple module over the semisimple ring . If it decomposed, a nontrivial idempotent of its endomorphism ring would lift by projectivity to an endomorphism of . The Hopkins-Levitzki theorem gives finite composition length, and the Fitting lemma makes the lift either invertible or nilpotent. Its induced map on the top would have the same property, impossible for that nontrivial idempotent.