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I am searching for a ring in which $0$ ideal is irreducible but not primary. I have an idea to show that $0$ ideal is irreducible : We have to construct a ring $R$ in such a way that there exist a nontrivial ideal $J$ such that $J \subseteq I$ for every non trivial ideal $I$ of $R.$ In this case, clearly, $0$ ideal is irreducible. Since, in noetherian rings, irreducible ideals are primary, we have to get examples in a non noetherian rings.

So I want an example of a non noetherian commutative ring with unity which has a nonzero ideal which is contained in every other ideal.

user26857
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    Can you construct a ring with only two proper ideals? – SVG Nov 27 '23 at 14:06
  • This will sadly be a non-commutative example, but if we look at the ring of bounded operators over a Hilbert space $H$ then the ideal of finite-rank operators on $H$ must be contained in any other non-zero ideal (I don't know if that can be extended to generic Banach spaces). – Bruno B Nov 27 '23 at 14:09
  • @SergeyGuminov How does it help? That would be a Noetherian ring, still. – rschwieb Nov 27 '23 at 15:19
  • @rschwieb The comment was written before OP edited the question. – Mark Nov 27 '23 at 16:35
  • @Mark Granted. At the time I wrote they both said "1 hour ago" and I did not know the timestamps had detailed mouseovers until now. That much is on me. But still it suggests a route that has no hope of working, given a standard result on Noetherian rings, so some comment has to be made. – rschwieb Nov 27 '23 at 19:01

1 Answers1

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I want an example of a non noetherian commutative ring with unity which has a nonzero ideal which is contained in every other ideal.

The following are commutative non-Noetherian rings with simple, essential socles. This amounts to the intersection of nonzero ideals being nonzero.

  1. $ \mathbb F_2[x_1, x_2, x_3,\ldots ]/(\{x_i^3\mid i\in \mathbb N\}\cup\{x_ix_j\mid i\neq j\}\cup\{x_i^2-x_j^2\mid i,j\in \mathbb N\}),$ where $\mathbb F_2$ is the field of two elements.

  2. The trivial extension $D(+)V$ where $D=F[[x]]$ for a field $F$, and $V=F((x))/D$

  3. The trivial extension $\mathbb Z (+) \mathbb Z_{p^\infty}$ of a Prüfer $p$-group by the integers.

  4. The monoid ring $\mathbb F_2[M]$ where $\mathbb F_2$ is the field of two elements and $M$ is the monoid structure on the interval $[0,1]$ where

$$ab:= \begin{cases} a+b & \text{ if } a+b \leq 1 \\ 0 & \text{ otherwise } \end{cases}. $$

The ideals of the second and fourth one are actually linearly ordered. The first and fourth one are not useful to you because they are local with nil radical, so $\{0\}$ is primary.

To see $\{0\}$ is not primary in the third one, take an element of the Prüfer group of order $p$, say $x$, then $(0,x)(p,0)=0$, and yet $(0,x)$ is not zero, and $(p,0)$ is not nilpotent.

The second one will also work for you, for similar reasons. You can use $a=(0, x^{-1}+k[[x]])$ as a nonzero element, and $b=(x,0)$ as a non-nilpotent element, and $ab=0$.

Clearly you can see the trivial extension construction is useful for creating non-primary zero ideals!


I'm using $(+)$ to denote the trivial extension. In detail, if we have a ring $R$ and a module $M$, the underlying set of $R(+)M$ is $R\times M$ and the operations are coordinatewise addition, and multiplication that is $(a,m)(b,n):=(ab,an+mb)$. Writing it as $R(+)M$ is just a way to make sure it's not confused for the product ring.

user26857
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rschwieb
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