Sunday, 22 February 2009

ra.rings and algebras - Characterizations of UFD and Euclidean domain by ideal-theoretic conditions

This questions is inspired by an exercise in Hungerford that I have only partially solved. The exercise reads: "A domain is a UFD if and only if every nonzero prime ideal contains a nonzero principal ideal that is prime." (For Hungerford, 'domain' means commutative ring with $1neq 0$ and no zero divisors).



One direction is easy: if $R$ is a UFD, and $P$ is a nonzero prime ideal, let $ain P$, $aneq 0$. Then factor $a$ into irreducibles, $a = c_1cdots c_m$. Since $P$ is a prime ideal in a commutative ring, it is completely prime so there is an $i$ such that $c_iin P$, and therefore, $(c_i)subseteq P$. Since $c_i$ is a prime element (because $R$ is a UFD), the ideal $(c_i)$ is prime.



I confess I am having trouble with the converse, and will appreciate any hints.



But on that same vein, I started wondering if there was a similar "ideal theoretic" condition that describes Euclidean domains. Other classes of domains have ideal theoretic definitions: PID is obvious, of course, but less obvious perhaps are that GCD domains can be defined by ideal-theoretic conditions (given any two principal ideals $(a)$ and $(b)$, there is a least principal ideal $(d)$ that contains $(a)$ and $(b)$, least among all principal ideals containing $(a)$ and $(b)$), as can Bezout domains (every finitely generated ideal is principal). Does anyone know if there is an ideal theoretic definition for Eucldean domains?

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