A ring homomorphism preserves addition, multiplication, and, under the convention used here, the multiplicative identity.
A ring homomorphism from a ring to itself. Surjectivity need not imply injectivity in general, but a surjective ring endomorphism of a Noetherian ring is a ring automorphism.
A bijective ring endomorphism. Its inverse is again a ring homomorphism, so it preserves the ring structure in both directions.
The kernel of a ring homomorphism is the ideal . The ring homomorphism is injective exactly when this ideal is zero.
A ring homomorphism transports ideals forward by extension and backward by inverse image, or contraction.