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Concept
Support of a module
Summary
In commutative algebra, the support of a module M over a commutative ring A is the set of all prime ideals of A such that (that is, the localization of M at is not equal to zero). It is denoted by . The support is, by definition, a subset of the spectrum of A.
if and only if its support is empty.
Let be a short exact sequence of A-modules. Then
Note that this union may not be a disjoint union.
If is a sum of submodules , then
If is a finitely generated A-module, then is the set of all prime ideals containing the annihilator of M. In particular, it is closed in the Zariski topology on Spec A.
If are finitely generated A-modules, then
If is a finitely generated A-module and I is an ideal of A, then is the set of all prime ideals containing This is .
If F is a quasicoherent sheaf on a scheme X, the support of F is the set of all points x in X such that the stalk Fx is nonzero. This definition is similar to the definition of the support of a function on a space X, and this is the motivation for using the word "support". Most properties of the support generalize from modules to quasicoherent sheaves word for word. For example, the support of a coherent sheaf (or more generally, a finite type sheaf) is a closed subspace of X.
If M is a module over a ring A, then the support of M as a module coincides with the support of the associated quasicoherent sheaf on the affine scheme Spec A. Moreover, if is an affine cover of a scheme X, then the support of a quasicoherent sheaf F is equal to the union of supports of the associated modules Mα over each Aα.
As noted above, a prime ideal is in the support if and only if it contains the annihilator of . For example, over , the annihilator of the module
is the ideal . This implies that , the vanishing locus of the polynomial f. Looking at the short exact sequence
we might mistakenly conjecture that the support of I = (f) is Spec(R(f)), which is the complement of the vanishing locus of the polynomial f. In fact, since R is an integral domain, the ideal I = (f) = Rf is isomorphic to R as a module, so its support is the entire space: Supp(I) = Spec(R).
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Related concepts (4)
Primary decomposition
In mathematics, the Lasker–Noether theorem states that every Noetherian ring is a Lasker ring, which means that every ideal can be decomposed as an intersection, called primary decomposition, of finitely many primary ideals (which are related to, but not quite the same as, powers of prime ideals). The theorem was first proven by for the special case of polynomial rings and convergent power series rings, and was proven in its full generality by .
Integral element
In commutative algebra, an element b of a commutative ring B is said to be integral over A, a subring of B, if there are n ≥ 1 and aj in A such that That is to say, b is a root of a monic polynomial over A. The set of elements of B that are integral over A is called the integral closure of A in B. It is a subring of B containing A. If every element of B is integral over A, then we say that B is integral over A, or equivalently B is an integral extension of A.
Localization (commutative algebra)
In commutative algebra and algebraic geometry, localization is a formal way to introduce the "denominators" to a given ring or module. That is, it introduces a new ring/module out of an existing ring/module R, so that it consists of fractions such that the denominator s belongs to a given subset S of R. If S is the set of the non-zero elements of an integral domain, then the localization is the field of fractions: this case generalizes the construction of the field of rational numbers from the ring of integers.