Counting intermediate rings in normal pairs (Q2427143)

In this paper, the authors study normal pairs of rings. A normal pair \((R,S)\) is a pair of integral domains such that each intermediate ring \(R \subset T \subset S\) is integrally closed in \(S\). The authors are mainly interested in the cardinality of the set \([R,S]\) of intermediate rings, and in particular, generalizing the results obtained by \textit{A.~Jaballah} [Expo. Math. 23, 353--360 (2005; Zbl 1100.13008)]. Under certain conditions, like the finiteness of the set \([R,S]\), the authors compute the number of intermediate rings. They also provide a connection between intermediate rings and prime ideals. One result toward this end is the following: If \(\mathfrak q\) is a prime ideal of \(R\) such that the set \(\mathcal M\) of maximal ideals \(\mathfrak m\) of \(R\) satisfying \(S_{R \backslash \mathfrak m}= R_{\mathfrak q}\) is non-empty, say \(\mathcal M=\{\mathfrak m_i : i \in I\}\), then for any intermediate ring \(T\) in \([\bigcap_{i \in I} R_{\mathfrak m_i}, R_{\mathfrak q}]\), there are prime ideals \(\mathfrak p_i \subset R\) such that \(T = \bigcap_{i \in I} R_{\mathfrak p_i}.\) If \([R,S]\) is assumed to be finite, then the cardinality of \([R_{\mathcal M}, R_{\mathfrak q}]\) is computed. When \(R\) is semiquasilocal with maximal ideals \(\mathfrak m_1, \dots, \mathfrak m_n\), the authors establish a bijective correspondence between the set of intermediate rings in \((R,S)\) and \(\prod_{j=1}^n [R_{\mathcal M_j}, R_{\mathfrak q}]\), where for each \(j\) the prime ideals \(\mathfrak q\) satisfy \(S_{R \backslash \mathfrak m_j}= R_{\mathfrak q}\). Moreover, the number of intermediate rings in \((R,S)\) is computed if (i) \([R,S]\) is assumed to be finite, or (ii) the prime ideals \(\mathfrak q\) are assumed to be pairwise incomparable.