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In mathematics, an element of a ring is called nilpotent if there exists some positive integer , called the index (or sometimes the degree), such that . The term, along with its sister idempotent, was introduced by Benjamin Peirce in the context of his work on the classification of algebras. This definition can be applied in particular to square matrices. The matrix is nilpotent because . See nilpotent matrix for more. In the factor ring , the equivalence class of 3 is nilpotent because 32 is congruent to 0 modulo 9. Assume that two elements and in a ring satisfy . Then the element is nilpotent as An example with matrices (for a, b): Here and . By definition, any element of a nilsemigroup is nilpotent. No nilpotent element can be a unit (except in the trivial ring, which has only a single element 0 = 1). All nilpotent elements are zero divisors. An matrix with entries from a field is nilpotent if and only if its characteristic polynomial is . If is nilpotent, then is a unit, because entails More generally, the sum of a unit element and a nilpotent element is a unit when they commute. The nilpotent elements from a commutative ring form an ideal ; this is a consequence of the binomial theorem. This ideal is the nilradical of the ring. Every nilpotent element in a commutative ring is contained in every prime ideal of that ring, since . So is contained in the intersection of all prime ideals. If is not nilpotent, we are able to localize with respect to the powers of : to get a non-zero ring . The prime ideals of the localized ring correspond exactly to those prime ideals of with . As every non-zero commutative ring has a maximal ideal, which is prime, every non-nilpotent is not contained in some prime ideal. Thus is exactly the intersection of all prime ideals. A characteristic similar to that of Jacobson radical and annihilation of simple modules is available for nilradical: nilpotent elements of ring are precisely those that annihilate all integral domains internal to the ring (that is, of the form for prime ideals ).

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Zero ring

In ring theory, a branch of mathematics, the zero ring or trivial ring is the unique ring (up to isomorphism) consisting of one element. (Less commonly, the term "zero ring" is used to refer to any rng of square zero, i.e., a rng in which xy = 0 for all x and y. This article refers to the one-element ring.) In the , the zero ring is the terminal object, whereas the ring of integers Z is the initial object. The zero ring, denoted {0} or simply 0, consists of the one-element set {0} with the operations + and · defined such that 0 + 0 = 0 and 0 · 0 = 0.

Unit (ring theory)

In algebra, a unit or invertible element of a ring is an invertible element for the multiplication of the ring. That is, an element u of a ring R is a unit if there exists v in R such that where 1 is the multiplicative identity; the element v is unique for this property and is called the multiplicative inverse of u. The set of units of R forms a group R^× under multiplication, called the group of units or unit group of R. Other notations for the unit group are R∗, U(R), and E(R) (from the German term Einheit).

Subring

In mathematics, a subring of R is a subset of a ring that is itself a ring when binary operations of addition and multiplication on R are restricted to the subset, and which shares the same multiplicative identity as R. For those who define rings without requiring the existence of a multiplicative identity, a subring of R is just a subset of R that is a ring for the operations of R (this does imply it contains the additive identity of R).