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Lecture

Dimension of Algebraic Variety

In course

MATH-328: Algebraic geometry I - Curves

Algebraic geometry is the common language for many branches of modern research in mathematics. This course gives an introduction to this field by studying algebraic curves and their intersection theory. ...

Description

This lecture covers the concept of dimension of an algebraic variety, which is defined as the largest integer n such that there exists a chain of distinct irreducible closed subsets. The instructor explains how the dimension of an algebraic set is related to the dimension theory for rings, specifically focusing on the (Krull)-dimension of a ring. Various propositions are presented, including the relationship between the dimension of an affine algebraic variety and its coordinate ring. The lecture also discusses computing dimensions using tools from commutative algebra, such as transcendence degree and prime ideals. Additionally, the precise dimension of varieties in different scenarios, like hypersurfaces, is explored.

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Instructor

Dimitri Stelio Wyss

Official source

Ontological neighbourhood

Mathematics

Algebra: Abstract algebra

Geometry: Algebraic geometry

Related concepts (32)

Algebraic variety

Algebraic varieties are the central objects of study in algebraic geometry, a sub-field of mathematics. Classically, an algebraic variety is defined as the set of solutions of a system of polynomial equations over the real or complex numbers. Modern definitions generalize this concept in several different ways, while attempting to preserve the geometric intuition behind the original definition. Conventions regarding the definition of an algebraic variety differ slightly.

Dimension

In physics and mathematics, the dimension of a mathematical space (or object) is informally defined as the minimum number of coordinates needed to specify any point within it. Thus, a line has a dimension of one (1D) because only one coordinate is needed to specify a point on it - for example, the point at 5 on a number line. A surface, such as the boundary of a cylinder or sphere, has a dimension of two (2D) because two coordinates are needed to specify a point on it - for example, both a latitude and longitude are required to locate a point on the surface of a sphere.

Krull dimension

In commutative algebra, the Krull dimension of a commutative ring R, named after Wolfgang Krull, is the supremum of the lengths of all chains of prime ideals. The Krull dimension need not be finite even for a Noetherian ring. More generally the Krull dimension can be defined for modules over possibly non-commutative rings as the deviation of the poset of submodules. The Krull dimension was introduced to provide an algebraic definition of the dimension of an algebraic variety: the dimension of the affine variety defined by an ideal I in a polynomial ring R is the Krull dimension of R/I.

Krull ring

In commutative algebra, a Krull ring, or Krull domain, is a commutative ring with a well behaved theory of prime factorization. They were introduced by Wolfgang Krull in 1931. They are a higher-dimensional generalization of Dedekind domains, which are exactly the Krull domains of dimension at most 1. In this article, a ring is commutative and has unity. Let be an integral domain and let be the set of all prime ideals of of height one, that is, the set of all prime ideals properly containing no nonzero prime ideal.

Prime ideal

In algebra, a prime ideal is a subset of a ring that shares many important properties of a prime number in the ring of integers. The prime ideals for the integers are the sets that contain all the multiples of a given prime number, together with the zero ideal. Primitive ideals are prime, and prime ideals are both primary and semiprime. An ideal P of a commutative ring R is prime if it has the following two properties: If a and b are two elements of R such that their product ab is an element of P, then a is in P or b is in P, P is not the whole ring R.

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