Covering numbers of commutative rings

DOI10.1016/J.JPAA.2020.106622MaRDI QIDQ2022441zbMATH OpenOpenAlexFDO

Publication date 29 April 2021

Published in Journal of Pure and Applied Algebra (Search for Journal in Brave)

Full work available at URL https://arxiv.org/abs/2008.13218

Combinatorial aspects of groups and algebras (05E16) Finite commutative rings (13M99) Finite rings and finite-dimensional associative algebras (16P10) Arithmetic and combinatorial problems involving abstract finite groups (20D60)

Abstract: A cover of a unital, associative (not necessarily commutative) ring

R

is a collection of proper subrings of

R

whose set-theoretic union equals

R

. If such a cover exists, then the covering number

s i g m a (R)

of

R

is the cardinality of a minimal cover, and a ring

R

is called

s i g m a

-elementary if

s i g m a (R) < s i g m a (R / I)

for every nonzero two-sided ideal

I

of

R

. In this paper, we show that if

R

has a finite covering number, then the calculation of

s i g m a (R)

can be reduced to the case where

R

is a finite ring of characteristic

p

and the Jacobson radical

J

of

R

has nilpotency 2. Our main result is that if

R

has a finite covering number and

R / J

is commutative (even if

R

itself is not), then either

s i g m a (R) = s i g m a (R / J)

, or

s i g m a (R) = p^{d} + 1

for some

d g e q s l a n t 1

. As a byproduct, we classify all commutative

s i g m a

-elementary rings with a finite covering number and characterize the integers that occur as the covering number of a commutative ring.

Review text

The goal of the article is to characterize when an associative and unital ring \(R\) can be expressed as the set theoretic union of a family of its proper subrings; if that happens, \(R\) is called coverable. The subrings of the cover do not necessarily contain the unity of \(R\), so that a larger class of subrings can be used in ring covers; for example a proper ideal can be taken into account in such a cover. The authors explores how to obtain a cover for a coverable ring. If \(R\) admits a finite cover, the covering number \(\sigma(R)\) is defined as the cardinality of a minimal cover. This problem has its origin in the analogue statement for groups, whose literature is rather large. The authors remark that given a two-sided ideal \(I\) of \(R\), a cover of \(R/I\) can be lifted to a cover of \(R\). Therefore, \(\sigma(R)\leq\sigma(R/I)\). When such inequality is strict for every such an ideal, they call \(R\) \(\sigma\)-elementary. This notion turns out to be useful for answering questions about covering numbers. In section 3, the authors show the following reduction argument: if a ring admits a finite cover, then there exists a finite residue ring \(\overline R\) of \(R\) of characteristic a prime \(p\) with the same covering number of \(R\) and such that the Jacobson radical of \(\overline{R}\) has nilpotency \(2\). In section 4, it is assumed that \(R\) is of this kind and furthermore that \(R\) is commutative. From the Wedderburn-Malcev Theorem, there exists a unique semisimple subring \(S\subseteq R\) such that \(S\cong R/J\) and \(R=S\oplus J\). The authors show that from this decomposition, it follows that a minimal cover of \(R\) can be obtained either by lifting a cover of \(R/J\cong S\) to \(R\) or by considering a cover of \(J\) formed by maximal subideals \(\{I_j\}_{j=1,\ldots,m}\) and then take the cover \(\{S\oplus I_j\}_{j=1,\ldots,m}\) of \(R\). The main Theorem 4.8 of this section shows that under the above assumptions, if \(J=(0)\) then \(R\) is isomorphic to a finite direct product of finite fields of a specific kind (determined by the second author in a previous publication, see [Am. Math. Mon. 122, No. 6, 552--566 (2015; Zbl 1339.16023)]) or if \(J\not=\{0\}\) to a matrix ring whose elements are \(3\times 3\) matrices of the form \(\begin{pmatrix}a&b&c\\ 0&a&0\\ 0&0&a\end{pmatrix}\) where \(a,b,c\) belongs to some finite field \(\mathbb F_q\) (if \(J\not=(0)\)). Finally, all the possible covering numbers for a commutative ring are classified in Corollary 4.9. In Section 5, the results of the previous sections are generalized to the case where only the residue ring \(R/J\) is assumed to be commutative. If \(J\not=(0)\), then \(\sigma(R)=p^d+1\), where \(p\) is the characteristic of \(R\) and \(d\) is a positive integer.

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