In mathematics, specifically ring theory, a principal ideal is an ideal in a ring that is generated by a single element of through multiplication by every element of The term also has another, similar meaning in order theory, where it refers to an (order) ideal in a poset generated by a single element which is to say the set of all elements less than or equal to in
The remainder of this article addresses the ring-theoretic concept.
While this definition for two-sided principal ideal may seem more complicated than the others, it is necessary to ensure that the ideal remains closed under addition.[citation needed]
If is a commutative ring with identity, then the above three notions are all the same. In that case, it is common to write the ideal generated by as or
Not all ideals are principal. For example, consider the commutative ring of all polynomials in two variables and with complex coefficients. The ideal generated by and which consists of all the polynomials in that have zero for the constant term, is not principal. To see this, suppose that were a generator for Then and would both be divisible by which is impossible unless is a nonzero constant. But zero is the only constant in so we have a contradiction.
In the ring the numbers where is even form a non-principal ideal. This ideal forms a regular hexagonal lattice in the complex plane. Consider and These numbers are elements of this ideal with the same norm (two), but because the only units in the ring are and they are not associates.
A ring in which every ideal is principal is called principal, or a principal ideal ring. A principal ideal domain (PID) is an integral domain in which every ideal is principal. Any PID is a unique factorization domain; the normal proof of unique factorization in the integers (the so-called fundamental theorem of arithmetic) holds in any PID.
The principal ideals in are of the form In fact, is a principal ideal domain, which can be shown as follows. Suppose where and consider the surjective homomorphisms Since is finite, for sufficiently large we have Thus which implies is always finitely generated. Since the ideal generated by any integers and is exactly by induction on the number of generators it follows that is principal.
However, all rings have principal ideals, namely, any ideal generated by exactly one element. For example, the ideal is a principal ideal of and is a principal ideal of In fact, and are principal ideals of any ring
Any Euclidean domain is a PID; the algorithm used to calculate greatest common divisors may be used to find a generator of any ideal. More generally, any two principal ideals in a commutative ring have a greatest common divisor in the sense of ideal multiplication. In principal ideal domains, this allows us to calculate greatest common divisors of elements of the ring, up to multiplication by a unit; we define to be any generator of the ideal
For a Dedekind domain we may also ask, given a non-principal ideal of whether there is some extension of such that the ideal of generated by is principal (said more loosely, becomes principal in ). This question arose in connection with the study of rings of algebraic integers (which are examples of Dedekind domains) in number theory, and led to the development of class field theory by Teiji Takagi, Emil Artin, David Hilbert, and many others.
The principal ideal theorem of class field theory states that every integer ring (i.e. the ring of integers of some number field) is contained in a larger integer ring which has the property that every ideal of becomes a principal ideal of In this theorem we may take to be the ring of integers of the Hilbert class field of ; that is, the maximal unramified abelian extension (that is, Galois extension whose Galois group is abelian) of the fraction field of and this is uniquely determined by
Krull's principal ideal theorem states that if is a Noetherian ring and is a principal, proper ideal of then has height at most one.