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Boolean Rings: 1 Preliminaries

This document summarizes a talk on Boolean rings given by Houssein El Turkey at the University of Oklahoma Department of Mathematics on February 5th, 2009. The talk defines Boolean rings as rings where every element is idempotent (x^2 = x for all x in R) and studies their structure. It is shown that Boolean rings are commutative, have characteristic 2, and that subdirectly irreducible Boolean rings with identity are isomorphic to Z_2. The main result is that a ring is Boolean if and only if it is isomorphic to a subdirect product of copies of Z_2.

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Himmatul Ulya
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89 views

Boolean Rings: 1 Preliminaries

This document summarizes a talk on Boolean rings given by Houssein El Turkey at the University of Oklahoma Department of Mathematics on February 5th, 2009. The talk defines Boolean rings as rings where every element is idempotent (x^2 = x for all x in R) and studies their structure. It is shown that Boolean rings are commutative, have characteristic 2, and that subdirectly irreducible Boolean rings with identity are isomorphic to Z_2. The main result is that a ring is Boolean if and only if it is isomorphic to a subdirect product of copies of Z_2.

Uploaded by

Himmatul Ulya
Copyright
© © All Rights Reserved
We take content rights seriously. If you suspect this is your content, claim it here.
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Download as PDF, TXT or read online on Scribd
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The University of Oklahoma

Department of Mathematics
Speaker: Houssein El Turkey
Student Algebra Seminar
Date: February 5th, 2009
Boolean rings
In this talk, we are going to dene Boolean rings and study their structure.
1 preliminaries
Denition 1. A ring R is said to be a subdirect product (or sum) of the family of rings
{ R
i
| i I } if R is a subring of the direct product

iI
R
i
such that
k
(R) = R
k
for all
k I, where
k
:

iI
R
i
R
k
is the canonical epimorphism.
Example 1. The direct product

iI
R
i
is itself a subdirect product of the rings R
i
.
There could be other subdirect products of the rings R
i
.
If a ring R is isomorphic to a subdirect product T of rings R
i
, i I, T may be called a
representation of R as a subdirect product of the rings R
i
.
Theorem 1. A ring R has a representation as a subdirect product of rings R
i
, i I i
for each i I, there exists an epimorphism
i
: R R
i
such that if r = 0 in R, then

i
(r) = 0 for at least one i I.
Example 2. The ring Z is a subdirect product of the elds Z
p
for all prime numbers p.
To prove this, let
p
: Z Z
p
be the canonical epimorphism
p
(n) = n(modp) = [n]
p
. If
r = 0 in Z, then r can not be a multiple of all primes p Z, and hence there is at least
one prime number p such that
p
(r) = 0. Then, by Theorem 1, Z is a subdirect product
of the elds Z
p
.
Denition 2. A ring R is subdirectly irreducible if the intersection of all nonzero ideals
of R is not {0}.
Example 3. A nonzero simple ring R has no proper nonzero ideals, and hence the in-
tersection of all nonzero ideals is R = {0}. Thus, a nonzero simple ring is subdirectly
irreducible. Consequently, any division ring is subdirectly irreducible.
1
Proposition 1. Let R be a subdirectly irreducible ring with identity and let e be a central
idempotent in R. Then e = 0 or e = 1.
Proof. Suppose e is a central idempotent element with e = 0 and e = 1.
Let A = eR. A is two-sided ideal since e is central. Since e
2
= e = 0 and e
2
A, then
A = {0}.
Since e = 1 and e is central, then there exists r R such that r er = 0. Let
B = {r er|r R}. Then B = {0}. Since e is central, then B is two-sided ideal.
Now, we will show that A B = {0}:
Let x A B, then x = er = r

er

and e
2
r = er

e
2
r

which implies that


er = er

er

= 0. Thus x = 0.
Since A = {0} and B = {0}, then

(all non zero ideals) AB, and hence

(all non zero ideals) =


{0} which contradicts the hypothesis that R is subdirectly irreducible. Therefore,
e = 0 or e = 1.
Theorem 2 (Birkhos Theorem). Every ring is isomorphic to a subdirect product of
subdirectly irreducible rings.
2 Structure of Boolean rings
Denition 3. A Boolean ring is a ring in which every element is idempotent; that is,
x
2
= x for all x R.
Remark 1. A subring of a Boolean ring is Boolean. Furthermore, a homomorphic image
of a Boolean ring is also Boolean.
Proof. Let S be a subring of the Boolean ring R. Then, for every x S, x is an element
of R and hence x is idempotent. Therefore S is Boolean.
Let T be a homomorphic image of R where : T R is a ring epimorphism.
Let t T, then t = (r) for some r R. Hence,
t
2
= (r)(r)
= (r
2
)
= (r)
= t.
Thus every element of T is idempotent. Therefore, T is Boolean.
2
Lemma 1. Let R be a Boolean ring. Then char(R) = 2.
Proof. Let x R. Then x
2
= x and (x+x)
2
= x+x which implies that x
2
+2x+x
2
= x+x
and hence 2x = 0. Thus, char(R) = 2. It follows then that x = x for all x R.
Lemma 2. If a ring R is Boolean, then R is commutative.
Proof. Let x, y R; we want to show that xy = yx. Since R is Boolean, then x
2
= x and
y
2
= y. Now,
x + y = (x + y)
2
= x
2
+ xy + yx + y
2
= x + xy + yx + y.
Therefore, xy = yx. Using the previous lemma, we have x = x for every x in R.
Hence, xy = yx.
Proposition 2. Let R be a eld. If R is Boolean, then R

= Z
2
.
Proof. Let x R and x = 0.
Then x
2
= x which implies that x(x 1) = 0. But x
1
exists, thus x = 1. Therefore,
R = {0, 1}

= Z
2
.
Proposition 3. Let R be a Boolean ring with identity. Then every prime ideal is maximal
in R.
Proof. Let P be a prime ideal of R. To show that P is maximal, we will show that R/P
is a eld.
Let x + P R/P where x + P = P; that is, x / P. We have
(x + P)
2
= x
2
+ P = x + P,
and hence x
2
x P which gives that x(x 1) P. Since x / P and P is prime ideal,
then x 1 P. Thus x + P = 1 + P. Therefore, R/P = {P, 1 + P} and hence R/P is a
eld. This completes the proof.
Corollary 1. Let R be a subdirectly irreducible ring with identity 1 = 0. If R is Boolean,
then R

= Z
2
.
Proof. Let x R. Since R is Boolean, then x is a central idempotent (R is commutative).
But R is subdirectly irreducible with identity, then by Proposition 1, x = 0 or x = 1.
Thus R

= Z
2
.
Now, we will introduce the main result in this talk which was motivated by the above
theorem:
3
Theorem 3. Let R be a ring with identity 1 = 0. Then R is Boolean i R is isomorphic
to a subdirect product of copies of the eld Z
2
.
Proof. Let R be a Boolean ring. By Birkhos Theorem (Theorem 2), R is isomorphic
to a subdirect product of nonzero subdirectly irreducible rings R
i
, i I. For each i I,
R
i
is the homomorphic image of R, and hence each R
i
is a Boolean ring with a nonzero
identity. But, R
i
is a subdirectly irreducible ring, and then, by Corollary 1, R
i

= Z
2
for
each i I. Therefore,
R

= subdirect product of copies of Z
2
.
Conversely, let R be isomorphic to a subdirect product of copies of Z
2
. Note that for
x Z
2
, x
2
= x. Then every element x Z
2
Z
2
. . ., x = (x
i
)
iI
, satises the identity
x
2
= x since x
2
= (x
2
i
)
iI
= (x
i
)
iI
= x. Thus, every element of the direct product
Z
2
Z
2
. . . is idempotent. Since R is isomorphic to a subdirect product of copies of
Z
2
, then R is isomorphic to a subring of Z
2
Z
2
. . . which is Boolean. Therefore, R is
Boolean.
Theorem 4. If R is a nite Boolean ring, then R has 2
k
elements for some positive
integer k.
Proof. Suppose |R| = m. We will show that m = 2
k
for some positive integer k. Suppose
not, then m has a prime factor p other than 2. Since R is an additive group, then by
Cauchys Theorem, R has an element x = 0 of order p; that is, p.x = 0. Since p is odd,
then p = 2n +1. Thus (2n +1).x = 0, but char(R) = 2 by Lemma 1, and hence x = 0, a
contradiction. This ends the proof.
References:
[1] El Turkey H., Generalizations of Boolean Rings, Masters thesis, The American Uni-
versity of Beirut, Beirut, Lebanon, June 2008.
4

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