The spectrum of a commutative ring is the set
For an ideal , set . The Zariski topology declares precisely these subsets to be closed sets. Using arbitrary subsets instead of ideals gives the same definition, because a prime ideal contains a subset exactly when it contains the ideal generated by that subset.
We verify the closed set axioms directly. First, and . For any family of ideals,
since containing the sum is equivalent to containing every summand. For two ideals,
Indeed, containing either or implies containing their product of ideals. Conversely, if a prime ideal contains but does not contain , choose . For every , , so the prime ideal property forces . Thus .
The displayed identities establish arbitrary intersections and finite unions of closed sets, including their empty cases. Therefore these sets define a topology on .
Distinct prime-power ideals are pairwise comaximal. For comaximal ideals, product equals intersection, so induction gives
The Chinese remainder theorem therefore gives the ring isomorphism
The ideal approximation theorem, proved by applying this Chinese-remainder map one prime power deeper, supplies
Equivalently, at every prime dividing .
Since , the fractional ideal
is an integral ideal and is a principal ideal. At every ,
, so .
Choose and with . Then
. For any ,
Thus
so every ideal of has a generating set of two elements.