Rings without identity and non-isomorphic ring structure on $\mathbb{Z}$

abstract-algebraself-learningsolution-verification

I am solving Exercise 2.15 from Aluffi chapter 0.

Exercise 2.15. For $m > 0$ , the abelian group $(\mathbb{Z},+)$ and $(m\mathbb{Z},+)$ are manifestly isomorphic: the function $\phi : \mathbb{Z} \rightarrow m\mathbb{Z}$ given by $n \mapsto nm$ is a group isomorphism. Use this isomorphism to transfer the structure of "ring without identity" $(m\mathbb{Z},+,*)$ back onto $\mathbb{Z}$: Give an explicit formula for the "multiplication" this defines on $\mathbb{Z}$. Explain why structures induced by different positive integer m are non-isomorphic as "rings without 1".

Solution:

We have the following map:

$\phi : \mathbb{Z} \rightarrow m\mathbb{Z}$ given by $n \mapsto nm$. We can use this map to transfer ring structure on $\mathbb{Z}$ as follows:

Let $s_1,s_2 \in \mathbb{Z}$ and set $s_1 s_2 = m (s_1 s_2)$. This defines ring structure on $\mathbb{Z}$. This ring structure is non-isomorphic because if we have $s_1 s_2 = m (s_1 s_2) = n (s_1 s_2)$ then we would have n = m for $n \neq m$. Is my my argument valid ?

Best Answer

You're almost there. What you showed in the end is that the identity map is not a ring homomorphism from $\mathbb Z$ with $n$ multiplication to $\mathbb Z$ with $m$ multiplication. So indeed this is not an isomorphism. However, a priori there could be some other isomorphism. However, the only group homomorphisms $\mathbb Z \longrightarrow \mathbb Z$ are multiplication by some fixed integer, so the only group isomorphisms are multiplication by the units $\pm 1$. You've shown that the identity map is not a ring isomorphism, so it remains to consider multiplication by $-1$. But since you restricted to $m > 0$, this won't work either. Hence, these rings are not isomorphic.

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