Commutative Algebra – Noetherian Property of Local Rings

commutative-algebraexamples-counterexamplesintegral-domainlocal-ringsnoetherian

Let $R$ be a commutative unital ring, and let $p$ be a prime number.

Question 1: If $R$ is a local ring (with unique maximal ideal $m$) of characteristic $0$, $p \in m$, and $R/p$ is finite, does it follow that $R$ is noetherian?

Question 2: In case the answer to 1 is "no", does it hold if we additionally assume $R$ to be a domain?

Motivation: This came out of discussions to the question $\mathcal{O}_{\mathbb{C}_p}/ p \mathcal{O}_{\mathbb{C}_p}$ infinite. I have come to suspect that the answer is no to both, but I have not suceeded in cooking up counterexamples. I'm afraid it's been too long since I studied all the local ring regularity properties, and just hope there is no easy proof with Nakayama or something that I'm missing.

Best Answer

Let $S\subset\mathbb{Q}[x]$ be the subring consisting of polynomials with integer constant term. Note that $(p)$ is a maximal ideal of $S$ with $S/(p)\cong\mathbb{F}_p$. Let $R$ be the localization $S_{(p)}$. It is clear that $R$ is a local domain of characteristic $0$ with maximal ideal generated by $p$ and $R/(p)\cong \mathbb{F}_p$ is finite.

I claim, however, that $R$ is not Noetherian. Indeed, consider the chain of ideals $(x)\subset(x/p)\subset(x/p^2)\subset\dots$. These inclusions are all strict since $1/p\not\in R$ so $x/p^{n+1}$ is not a multiple of $x/p^n$ for any $n$.


Here is a very general principle along these lines. Let $R$ be any non-Artinian ring. Then I claim $R$ has an elementary extension (over the first-order language of rings) which is not Noetherian. Indeed, add a sequence of constant symbols $x_0,x_1,x_2,\dots$ to the language and axioms saying $x_n$ is not in the ideal generated by $x_0,\dots,x_{n-1}$ for each $n$. These axioms are finitely satisfiable in $R$, since $R$ is not Artinian so there are arbitrarily long finite chains of ideals in $R$. So by compactness, there is an elementary extension of $R$ that satisfies all of them, and thus is not Noetherian.

In particular, applying this with (say) $R=\mathbb{Z}_{(p)}$ this gives an elementary extension of $\mathbb{Z}_{(p)}$ that is not Noetherian. The properties of being local, characteristic $0$, $p$ being in the maximal ideal, a domain, and $R/(p)$ having $p$ elements are all first-order, and thus are still true of this elementary extension.

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