Embedding of Noetherian rings into faithful modules (Q790187)

The author addresses the general question of when a commutative Noetherian ring A has the property that it can be embedded in any finitely generated faithful A-module. It is shown that a Noetherian ring A has this property if and only if for each associated prime P of A the dimension over \(A_ P/PA_ P\) of the annihilator of \(PA_ P\) is one. As a corollary, it follows that an A with no embedded associated primes has the above property if and only if the total quotient ring of A is Gorenstein. Behavior under flat base change is considered. It is shown, for example, that if A is a local ring with completion \(\hat A\), then \(\hat A\) having the above property implies that A also does. The converse fails in general, but is true if A is a homomorphic image of a Gorenstein ring. If (A,\({\mathfrak m})\) is an Artinian local ring, a useful example in connection with the above question is the injective envelope \(E_ A(A/{\mathfrak m})\).