Non-commutative valuation rings and semi-hereditary orders (Q1359943)

The monograph gives a clearly written, self-contained introduction into the rich field of non-noetherian orders in simple artinian rings, a field in which considerable progress has been achieved during the last decade. The central topics in the book are non-commutative valuation rings and their globalizations. In the commutative case, an integral domain \(D\) is said to be a Prüfer domain if its localizations at maximal ideals are valuation domains. Here the notions of invertibility or projectivity of an ideal, or even to be a progenerator, are equivalent. For non-commutative rings, however, these concepts give rise to different answers to the question what should be the proper ``global'' of a valuation domain. Accordingly, semi-hereditary and Prüfer orders are treated in Chapter I. Concerning the non-commutative analogue of a valuation ring, a major breakthrough was made in 1984 by Dubrovin, whose concept of valuation ring in a simple artinian ring is justified by so many remarkable features that there is reason to accept his notion as the proper one. An excellent summary of the basic properties of Dubrovin valuation rings is given in Chapter II of the monograph. For instance, they are characterized as primary semi-hereditary orders in a simple artinian ring \(Q\). In the noetherian case, they coincide with primary hereditary orders in \(Q\). Moreover, it is shown that for a Dubrovin valuation ring \(R\) in \(Q\), the \(R\)-ideals in \(Q\) form a chain, and that the overrings of \(R\) are obtained by localization at prime ideals of \(R\). If \(Q\) is finite over its center, then all prime ideals of \(R\) belong to overrings in this way, and the correspondence is bijective. In this case, it is proved that the semigroup of \(R\)-ideals is commutative. For a valuation ring \(V\) of the center \(F\) of \(Q\), there exists an extension to a Dubrovin valuation ring \(R\) of \(Q\) which is unique up to conjugation. In general, however, \(R\) need not be integral over its center. Several characterizations for \(R\) to be integral over \(Z(R)\) are given. In Chapter III, semilocal Bézout orders are treated. For a Bézout order \(R\) in \(Q\), not necessarily finite over \(Z(Q)\), the Dubrovin valuation overrings are localizations at prime ideals \(P\) of \(R\), for which \(R/P\) is a prime Goldie ring, and each such \(P\) gives rise to a Dubrovin valuation ring \(R_P\). In this chapter, an approximation theorem is proved, and for \(Q\) finite over \(Z(Q)\), the semilocal Bézout orders are characterized. Moreover, prime and primary ideals are discussed for these orders. In the concluding chapter IV, a number of interesting examples and applications are given. One topic here are the idealizers of semimaximal ideals which provide interesting examples of semihereditary rings if the ring start with is a semihereditary order in an artinian algebra. In contrast to the commutative case, the maximal ideals of a Prüfer order need not be suitable for localization. However, if \((Q:Z(Q))<\infty\), a theorem of Dubrovin says that for every prime ideal of a Prüfer order \(R\) in \(Q\), the localization \(R_P\) is defined and yields a Dubrovin valuation ring. If \(Q\) is finite over its center, the Dubrovin valuation rings integral over its center are characterized as those which come from a value function, that is, a ``valuation'' \(Q\twoheadrightarrow\Gamma\cup\{\infty\}\) into a totally ordered, not necessarily abelian group \(\Gamma\). Other topics here are tensor products of Dubrovin valuation rings, crossed products, and henselizations of Bézout orders. Our overview is bound to give only a rough sketch of the rich material presented in the book. For researchers and graduate students the well-written volume will serve as a non-noetherian companion to \textit{Irving Reiner}'s classical book on ``Maximal orders'' (1975; Zbl 0305.16001).