Subring
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
In mathematics, a subring is a subset of a ring, which contains the multiplicative identity and is itself a ring under the same binary operations. Naturally, those authors who do not require rings to contain a multiplicative identity do not require subrings to possess the identity (if it exists). This leads to the added advantage that proper ideals become subrings (see below).
A subring of a ring (R, +, *) is a subgroup of (R, +) which contains the identity and is closed under multiplication.
For example, the ring Z of integers is a subring of the field of real numbers and also a subring of the ring of polynomials Z[X].
The ring Z has no subrings (with multiplicative identity) other than itself.
Every ring has a unique smallest subring, isomorphic to either the integers Z or some ring Z/nZ with n a nonnegative integer (see characteristic).
Some rings can be described as an assemblage of their commutative subrings. See for example profile of quaternions and profile of coquaternions.
[edit] Relation to ideals
Proper ideals are never subrings since if they contain the identity then they must be the entire ring. For example, ideals in Z are of the form nZ where n is any integer. These are subrings if and only if n = ±1 (otherwise they do not contain 1) in which case they are all of Z.
If one omits the requirement that rings have a unit element, then subrings need only contain 0 and be closed under addition, subtraction and multiplication, and ideals become subrings. Ideals may or may not have their own multiplicative identity (distinct from the identity of the ring):
- The ideal I = {(z,0)|z in Z} of the ring Z × Z = {(x,y)|x,y in Z} with componentwise addition and multiplication has the identity (1,0), which is different from the identity (1,1) of the ring. So I is a ring with unity, and a "subring-without-unity", but not a "subring-with-unity" of Z × Z.
- The proper ideals of Z have no multiplicative identity.
