Given an ring extension of a (commutative with unit) ring, Is it possible to give a "good" notion of "degree of the extension"?. By "good", I am thinking in a degree which allow us, for instance, to define finite ring extensions and generalize in some way the Galois' correspondence between field extensions and subgroups of Galois' group.
I suppose one can call a ring extension $A\subset B\ $ finite if $B$ is finitely generated as an $A$-module, and the degree would be the minimal number of generators, but is that notion enough to state a correspondence theorem?
Thanks in advance!
Best Answer
There is indeed a theory of Galois extension of rings. See, for example, the very nice paper [Chase, S. U.; Harrison, D. K.; Rosenberg, Alex. Galois theory and Galois cohomology of commutative rings. Mem. Amer. Math. Soc. No. 52 1965 15--33. MR0195922 (33 #4118)] The theory developed there does include a Galois correspondence.
There is even a Hopf-Galois theory, where the Galois group is replaced by a Hopf algebra (co)acting on the big ring, for extra fun---the correspondence in this case, though, is quite more delicate/complicated.