Summary
In ring theory and homological algebra, the global dimension (or global homological dimension; sometimes just called homological dimension) of a ring A denoted gl dim A, is a non-negative integer or infinity which is a homological invariant of the ring. It is defined to be the supremum of the set of projective dimensions of all A-modules. Global dimension is an important technical notion in the dimension theory of Noetherian rings. By a theorem of Jean-Pierre Serre, global dimension can be used to characterize within the class of commutative Noetherian local rings those rings which are regular. Their global dimension coincides with the Krull dimension, whose definition is module-theoretic. When the ring A is noncommutative, one initially has to consider two versions of this notion, right global dimension that arises from consideration of the right A-modules, and left global dimension that arises from consideration of the left A-modules. For an arbitrary ring A the right and left global dimensions may differ. However, if A is a Noetherian ring, both of these dimensions turn out to be equal to weak global dimension, whose definition is left-right symmetric. Therefore, for noncommutative Noetherian rings, these two versions coincide and one is justified in talking about the global dimension. Let A = K[x1,...,xn] be the ring of polynomials in n variables over a field K. Then the global dimension of A is equal to n. This statement goes back to David Hilbert's foundational work on homological properties of polynomial rings; see Hilbert's syzygy theorem. More generally, if R is a Noetherian ring of finite global dimension k and A = R[x] is a ring of polynomials in one variable over R then the global dimension of A is equal to k + 1. A ring has global dimension zero if and only if it is semisimple. The global dimension of a ring A is less than or equal to one if and only if A is hereditary. In particular, a commutative principal ideal domain which is not a field has global dimension one. For example has global dimension one.
About this result
This page is automatically generated and may contain information that is not correct, complete, up-to-date, or relevant to your search query. The same applies to every other page on this website. Please make sure to verify the information with EPFL's official sources.
Ontological neighbourhood
Related courses (1)
MATH-311: Algebra IV - rings and modules
Ring and module theory with a major emphasis on commutative algebra and a minor emphasis on homological algebra.
Related people (1)
Related concepts (12)
Hilbert's syzygy theorem
In mathematics, Hilbert's syzygy theorem is one of the three fundamental theorems about polynomial rings over fields, first proved by David Hilbert in 1890, which were introduced for solving important open questions in invariant theory, and are at the basis of modern algebraic geometry. The two other theorems are Hilbert's basis theorem that asserts that all ideals of polynomial rings over a field are finitely generated, and Hilbert's Nullstellensatz, which establishes a bijective correspondence between affine algebraic varieties and prime ideals of polynomial rings.
Resolution (algebra)
In mathematics, and more specifically in homological algebra, a resolution (or left resolution; dually a coresolution or right resolution) is an exact sequence of modules (or, more generally, of s of an ), which is used to define invariants characterizing the structure of a specific module or object of this category. When, as usually, arrows are oriented to the right, the sequence is supposed to be infinite to the left for (left) resolutions, and to the right for right resolutions.
Injective module
In mathematics, especially in the area of abstract algebra known as module theory, an injective module is a module Q that shares certain desirable properties with the Z-module Q of all rational numbers. Specifically, if Q is a submodule of some other module, then it is already a direct summand of that module; also, given a submodule of a module Y, any module homomorphism from this submodule to Q can be extended to a homomorphism from all of Y to Q. This concept is to that of projective modules.
Show more