mathematics Mathematics is an area of knowledge that includes the topics of numbers, formulas and related structures, shapes and the spaces in which they are contained, and quantities and their changes. These topics are represented in modern mathematics ...

, more specifically

ring theory In algebra, ring theory is the study of rings—algebraic structures in which addition and multiplication are defined and have similar properties to those operations defined for the integers. Ring theory studies the structure of rings, their r ...

, an

ideal Ideal may refer to: Philosophy * Ideal (ethics), values that one actively pursues as goals * Platonic ideal, a philosophical idea of trueness of form, associated with Plato Mathematics * Ideal (ring theory), special subsets of a ring considered ...

''I'' of a ring ''R'' is said to be a nilpotent ideal if there exists a

natural number In mathematics, the natural numbers are those numbers used for counting (as in "there are ''six'' coins on the table") and ordering (as in "this is the ''third'' largest city in the country"). Numbers used for counting are called '' cardinal ...

''k'' such that ''I''^''k'' = 0. By ''I''^''k'', it is meant the additive

subgroup In group theory, a branch of mathematics, given a group ''G'' under a binary operation ∗, a subset ''H'' of ''G'' is called a subgroup of ''G'' if ''H'' also forms a group under the operation ∗. More precisely, ''H'' is a subgroup ...

generated by the

set Set, The Set, SET or SETS may refer to: Science, technology, and mathematics Mathematics *Set (mathematics), a collection of elements *Category of sets, the category whose objects and morphisms are sets and total functions, respectively Electro ...

of all products of ''k'' elements in ''I''. Therefore, ''I'' is nilpotent if and only if there is a natural number ''k'' such that the product of any ''k'' elements of ''I'' is 0. The notion of a nilpotent ideal is much stronger than that of a

nil ideal In mathematics, more specifically ring theory, a left, right or two-sided ideal of a ring is said to be a nil ideal if each of its elements is nilpotent., p. 194 The nilradical of a commutative ring is an example of a nil ideal; in fact, it is ...

in many classes of rings. There are, however, instances when the two notions coincide—this is exemplified by

Levitzky's theorem In mathematics, more specifically ring theory and the theory of nil ideals, Levitzky's theorem, named after Jacob Levitzki, states that in a right Noetherian ring, every nil one-sided ideal is necessarily nilpotent. Levitzky's theorem is one of t ...

. The notion of a nilpotent ideal, although interesting in the case of

commutative ring In mathematics, a commutative ring is a ring in which the multiplication operation is commutative. The study of commutative rings is called commutative algebra. Complementarily, noncommutative algebra is the study of ring properties that are not ...

s, is most interesting in the case of noncommutative rings.

Relation to nil ideals

The notion of a nil ideal has a deep connection with that of a nilpotent ideal, and in some classes of rings, the two notions coincide. If an ideal is nilpotent, it is of course nil, but a nil ideal need not be nilpotent for more than one reason. The first is that there need not be a global upper bound on the exponent required to annihilate various elements of the nil ideal, and secondly, each element being nilpotent does not force products of distinct elements to vanish. In a right

Artinian ring In mathematics, specifically abstract algebra, an Artinian ring (sometimes Artin ring) is a ring that satisfies the descending chain condition on (one-sided) ideals; that is, there is no infinite descending sequence of ideals. Artinian rings are ...

, any nil ideal is nilpotent.Isaacs, Corollary 14.3, p. 195 This is proven by observing that any nil ideal is contained in the

Jacobson radical In mathematics, more specifically ring theory, the Jacobson radical of a ring R is the ideal consisting of those elements in R that annihilate all simple right R-modules. It happens that substituting "left" in place of "right" in the definition y ...

of the ring, and since the Jacobson radical is a nilpotent ideal (due to the Artinian hypothesis), the result follows. In fact, this can be generalized to right

Noetherian ring In mathematics, a Noetherian ring is a ring that satisfies the ascending chain condition on left and right ideals; if the chain condition is satisfied only for left ideals or for right ideals, then the ring is said left-Noetherian or right-Noethe ...

s; this result is known as

Notes

References

* * {{cite book , author = I. Martin Isaacs , author-link = Martin Isaacs , year = 1993 , title = Algebra, a graduate course , edition = 1st , publisher = Brooks/Cole Publishing Company , isbn = 0-534-19002-2 Ideals (ring theory)

Relation to nil ideals

See also

Notes

References