Past exam of the mathematics course of the University of Cambridge 2003 iii Paper 2 2 Solution Created 2026-10-03 Updated 2026-10-14
Put , and let be any ideal of this formal power series ring. For define an ideal of byMultiplication by shows . Since is Noetherian, this chain stabilizes at some , and each is finitely generated. For every , choose finitely many series whose degree- coefficients generate .
Given , cancel its degree-zero coefficient using the , then its degree-one coefficient using the , and so on. At a degree , use . Each residual remains in and has zero coefficients below the next cancellation degree. For each of the finitely many chosen , accumulate its multiplier into a formal power series . The higher-degree increments of these multipliers converge coefficientwise. At every degree the cancellation procedure gives the exact coefficient identity, soThus the finitely many lifts generate as an actual ideal. No assumption that is closed has been used. This proves Noetherianity of formal power series rings:Iterating the argument proves the assertion for , which is naturally the iterated formal power series ring.
For a surjective module map , define the adic completion of a module byTake and choose representatives for its components. Compatibility says . Choose with . If , surjectivity gives , so choose with and put . The classes of modulo are compatible and map to the chosen components of . HenceThis surjectivity on adic completions does not require finite generation of or . The compatibility of the lifts is the point; independent lifts of the finite-level classes would not suffice.
Since is Noetherian, write . Define a ring homomorphismModulo , evaluating a series requires only its finitely many terms of total degree below . These evaluations commute with the reduction maps, and define without needing the original ring to be complete or separated.
To prove surjectivity, begin with . Choose matching its component modulo . After terms of total degree below have been chosen, their evaluation differs from at level by a class in . This class is an -linear combination of the monomials with . Choose the corresponding homogeneous degree- polynomial as the next term. Then the series evaluates to at every level. This proves the power-series presentation of an adic completion, and thereforeA quotient of a Noetherian ring is Noetherian, since its ideals correspond to ideals containing the kernel. The cases and give and , respectively, and satisfy the conclusion as well.