Ideal structure of the classical ring of quotients of \(C(X)\) (Q2630448)

An ideal \(I\) in a ring \(R\) is called a \(z\)-ideal (\(z^0\)-ideal, also called \(d\)-ideal) if for all \(a \in I\), the intersection of all maximal (minimal prime) ideals of \(R\) containing \(a\) is contained in \(I\). A ring \(R\) is reduced if it has zero nilradical; it has property \(A\) if every finitely generated ideal consisting of zero divisors has a nonzero annihilator. In the context of the ring \(C(X)\) of real-valued continuous functions on a completely regular Hausdorff space \(X\), a reduced ring with property \(A\), this paper investigates the ideal structure of the classical ring of quotients of \(C(X)\), which is denoted by \(q(X)\). The ring homomorphism \(\phi : C(X) \to q(X)\) with \(\phi (f) = \frac{f}{1}, f, 1 \in C(X)\), \(\phi ^{-1} (J), J\) is an ideal in \(q(X)\), is called a contraction of \(J\) to \(C(X)\), and \(\phi(I), I\) is an ideal in \(C(x)\), is called an extension of \(I\) to \(q(X)\). It is shown that every maximal ideal in \(q(X)\) is the extension of a unique maximal \(z^0\)-ideal in \(C(X)\), and that the sets of \(z\)-ideals of \(X\) and \(z^0\)-ideals of \(q(X)\) coincide. This leads to a one-to-one correspondence between \(z^0\)-ideals of \(C(X)\) and \(z^0\)-ideals of \(q(X)\). For \(p \in \beta X\), the Stone-Čech compactification of \(X\), \(O^p\) is the set of all \( f \in C(X)\) for which \(p \in int_{\beta X} cl_{\beta X}Z(f)\), its extension \(\mathcal{O}^p\) is a maximal ideal of \(q(X)\), for all \(p \in \beta X\), if and only if \(X\) is basically disconnected, i.e., the closure of every cozero-set in \(X\) is open in \(X\). Each \(\mathcal{O}^p\) is contained in a unique maximal ideal of \(q(X)\) if and only if \(X\) is a quasi-\(F\) space, i.e., every bounded continuous function on a dense cozero-set has a continuous extension to \(X\). The authors also find algebraic characterizations of \(q(X)\): for example, \(q(X)\) is regular (von Neumann) if and only if for each \( f \in C(X)\), there exists a non-zero divisor \(r \in C(X)\) such that \( |f|^2 = r|f|\), or equivalently, \( \frac{|f|}{|r|}\) is idempotent in \(q(X)\).