Maximal ideals in module categories and applications (Q1656712)

\textit{A. Facchini} proved [Contemp. Math. 480, 139--151 (2009; Zbl 1196.16002)] that the simple modules over a ring \(R\) correspond bijectively to the minimal ideals in the module category. In the paper under review, it is shown that module categories (more generally: Grothendieck categories) are ``big'' in the sense that there are no maximal ideals. The proof introduces a partial order on the objects which allows to built strictly increasing chains of ideals. The partial order is then applied to more general preadditive categories.