On ideals of ideals in \(C(X)\) (Q281063)

This paper is a collection of various results concerning ideals in \(C(X)\) whose ideals are also ideals of \(C(X)\). In Section 2, the authors first prove that if \(I\) is an ideal of \(C(X)\), then every ideal of \(I\) is an ideal of \(C(X)\) if and only if \(I\) is a pure ideal. (Recall that \(I\) is pure if for each \(f\in I\) there exists \(g\in I\) such that \(f=fg\).) Furthermore, every ideal of \(I\) is a \(z\)-ideal of \(C(X)\) if and only if \(I\) is a \(P\)-ideal (that is, every proper prime ideal of \(I\) is maximal in \(I\)). The section continues with characterizations of when \(C_K(X)\) and \(C_\psi(X)\) are \(P\)-ideals. The authors conclude Section 2 with a proof that \(C_\infty(X)\) is a regular ring if and only if \(X\) is an \(\infty\)-compact, \(P_\infty\)-space. Section 3 contains some results on prime and semiprime ideals. In particular, the authors prove that the sum of any two prime (semiprime) ideals of each ideal of \(C(X)\) is prime (semiprime) if and only if \(X\) is an \(F\)-space. In Section 4, the authors discuss separability of ideals (and \(P\)-ideals). Finally, in Section 5, the authors discuss the Goldie dimension of an ideal \(I\) in \(C(X)\) and that it coincides with the cellularity of \(X\smallsetminus \Delta (I)\).