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This book provides an introduction to classical methods in commutative algebra and their applications to number theory, algebraic geometry, and computational algebra. The use of number theory as a motivating theme throughout the book provides a rich and interesting context for the material covered. In addition, many results are reinterpreted from a geometric perspective, providing further insight and motivation for the study of commutative algebra. The content covers the classical theory of Noetherian rings, including primary decomposition and dimension theory, topological methods such as completions, computational techniques, local methods and multiplicity theory, as well as some topics of a more arithmetic nature, including the theory of Dedekind rings, lattice embeddings, and Witt vectors. Homological methods appear in the author's sequel, Homological Methods in Commutative Algebra. Overall, this book is an excellent resource for advanced undergraduates and beginning graduate students in algebra or number theory. It is also suitable for students in neighboring fields such as algebraic geometry who wish to develop a strong foundation in commutative algebra. Some parts of the book may be useful to supplement undergraduate courses in number theory, computational algebra or algebraic geometry. The clear and detailed presentation, the inclusion of computational techniques and arithmetic topics, and the numerous exercises make it a valuable addition to any library.

This book develops a new theory in convex geometry, generalizing positive bases and related to Carathéordory's Theorem by combining convex geometry, the combinatorics of infinite subsets of lattice points, and the arithmetic of transfer Krull monoids (the latter broadly generalizing the ubiquitous class of Krull domains in commutative algebra)This new theory is developed in a self-contained way with the main motivation of its later applications regarding factorization. While factorization into irreducibles, called atoms, generally fails to be unique, there are various measures of how badly this can fail. Among the most important is the elasticity, which measures the ratio between the maximum and minimum number of atoms in any factorization. Having finite elasticity is a key indicator that factorization, while not unique, is not completely wild. Via the developed material in convex geometry, we characterize when finite elasticity holds for any Krull domain with finitely generated class group $G$, with the results extending more generally to transfer Krull monoids. This book is aimed at researchers in the field but is written to also be accessible for graduate students and general mathematicians.

This volume features contributions from the Women in Commutative Algebra (WICA) workshop held at the Banff International Research Station (BIRS) from October 20-25, 2019, run by the Pacific Institute of Mathematical Sciences (PIMS). The purpose of this meeting was for groups of mathematicians to work on joint research projects in the mathematical field of Commutative Algebra and continue these projects together long-distance after its close. The chapters include both direct results and surveys, with contributions from research groups and individual authors.The WICA conference was the first of its kind in the large and vibrant area of Commutative Algebra, and this volume is intended to showcase its important results and to encourage further collaboration among marginalized practitioners in the field. It will be of interest to a wide range of researchers, from PhD students to senior experts.

Erdős asked how many distinct distances must there be in a set of $n$ points in the plane. Falconer asked a continuous analogue, essentially asking what is the minimal Hausdorff dimension required of a compact set in order to guarantee that the set of distinct distances has positive Lebesgue measure in $R$. The finite field distance problem poses the analogous question in a vector space over a finite field. The problem is relatively new but remains tantalizingly out of reach. This book provides an accessible, exciting summary of known results. The tools used range over combinatorics, number theory, analysis, and algebra. The intended audience is graduate students and advanced undergraduates interested in investigating the unknown dimensions of the problem. Results available until now only in the research literature are clearly explained and beautifully motivated. A concluding chapter opens up connections to related topics in combinatorics and number theory: incidence theory, sum-product phenomena, Waring's problem, and the Kakeya conjecture.

This proceedings volume gathers together original articles and survey works that originate from presentations given at the conference Transient Transcendence in Transylvania, held in Brașov, Romania, from May 13th to 17th, 2019. The conference gathered international experts from various fields of mathematics and computer science, with diverse interests and viewpoints on transcendence. The covered topics are related to algebraic and transcendental aspects of special functions and special numbers arising in algebra, combinatorics, geometry and number theory. Besides contributions on key topics from invited speakers, this volume also brings selected papers from attendees.

This book discusses regular powers and symbolic powers of ideals from three perspectives– algebra, combinatorics and geometry – and examines the interactions between them. It invites readers to explore the evolution of the set of associated primes of higher and higher powers of an ideal and explains the evolution of ideals associated with combinatorial objects like graphs or hypergraphs in terms of the original combinatorial objects. It also addresses similar questions concerning our understanding of the Castelnuovo-Mumford regularity of powers of combinatorially defined ideals in terms of the associated combinatorial data. From a more geometric point of view, the book considers how the relations between symbolic and regular powers can be interpreted in geometrical terms. Other topics covered include aspects of Waring type problems, symbolic powers of an ideal and their invariants (e.g., the Waldschmidt constant, the resurgence), and the persistence of associated primes.

This book presents the state of the art on numerical semigroups and related subjects, offering different perspectives on research in the field and including results and examples that are very difficult to find in a structured exposition elsewhere. The contents comprise the proceedings of the 2018 INdAM “International Meeting on Numerical Semigroups”, held in Cortona, Italy. Talks at the meeting centered not only on traditional types of numerical semigroups, such as Arf or symmetric, and their usual properties, but also on related types of semigroups, such as affine, Puiseux, Weierstrass, and primary, and their applications in other branches of algebra, including semigroup rings, coding theory, star operations, and Hilbert functions. The papers in the book reflect the variety of the talks and derive from research areas including Semigroup Theory, Factorization Theory, Algebraic Geometry, Combinatorics, Commutative Algebra, Coding Theory, and Number Theory. The book is intended for researchers and students who want to learn about recent developments in the theory of numerical semigroups and its connections with other research fields.

This textbook offers a unique introduction to classical Galois theory through many concrete examples and exercises of varying difficulty (including computer-assisted exercises). In addition to covering standard material, the book explores topics related to classical problems such as Galois'theorem on solvable groups of polynomial equations of prime degrees, Nagell's proof of non-solvability by radicals of quintic equations, Tschirnhausen's transformations, lunes of Hippocrates, and Galois'resolvents. Topics related to open conjectures are also discussed, including exercises related to the inverse Galois problem and cyclotomic fields. The author presents proofs of theorems, historical comments and useful references alongside the exercises, providing readers with a well-rounded introduction to the subject and a gateway to further reading. A valuable reference and a rich source of exercises with sample solutions, this book will be useful to both students and lecturers. Its original concept makes it particularly suitable for self-study.

This is the first in a series of three volumes dealing with important topics in algebra. It offers an introduction to the foundations of mathematics together with the fundamental algebraic structures, namely groups, rings, fields, and arithmetic. Intended as a text for undergraduate and graduate students of mathematics, it discusses all major topics in algebra with numerous motivating illustrations and exercises to enable readers to acquire a good understanding of the basic algebraic structures, which they can then use to find the exact or the most realistic solutions to their problems.

This is the second in a series of three volumes dealing with important topics in algebra. Volume 2 is an introduction to linear algebra (including linear algebra over rings), Galois theory, representation theory, and the theory of group extensions. The section on linear algebra (chapters 1–5) does not require any background material from Algebra 1, except an understanding of set theory. Linear algebra is the most applicable branch of mathematics, and it is essential for students of science and engineering As such, the text can be used for one-semester courses for these students. The remaining part of the volume discusses Jordan and rational forms, general linear algebra (linear algebra over rings), Galois theory, representation theory (linear algebra over group algebras), and the theory of extension of groups follow linear algebra, and is suitable as a text for the second and third year students specializing in mathematics.

This book offers an account of the classical theory of quadratic residues and non-residues with the goal of using that theory as a lens through which to view the development of some of the fundamental methods employed in modern elementary, algebraic, and analytic number theory. The first three chapters present some basic facts and the history of quadratic residues and non-residues and discuss various proofs of the Law of Quadratic Reciprosity in depth, with an emphasis on the six proofs that Gauss published. The remaining seven chapters explore some interesting applications of the Law of Quadratic Reciprocity, prove some results concerning the distribution and arithmetic structure of quadratic residues and non-residues, provide a detailed proof of Dirichlet's Class-Number Formula, and discuss the question of whether quadratic residues are randomly distributed. The text is a valuable resource for graduate and advanced undergraduate students as well as for mathematicians interested in number theory.

This text aims to provide graduate students with a self-contained introduction to topics that are at the forefront of modern algebra, namely, coalgebras, bialgebras and Hopf algebras. The last chapter (Chapter 4) discusses several applications of Hopf algebras, some of which are further developed in the author's 2011 publication, An Introduction to Hopf Algebras. The book may be used as the main text or as a supplementary text for a graduate algebra course. Prerequisites for this text include standard material on groups, rings, modules, algebraic extension fields, finite fields and linearly recursive sequences.The book consists of four chapters. Chapter 1 introduces algebras and coalgebras over a field K; Chapter 2 treats bialgebras; Chapter 3 discusses Hopf algebras and Chapter 4 consists of three applications of Hopf algebras. Each chapter begins with a short overview and ends with a collection of exercises which are designed to review and reinforce the material. Exercises range from straightforward applications of the theory to problems that are devised to challenge the reader. Questions for further study are provided after selected exercises. Most proofs are given in detail, though a few proofs are omitted since they are beyond the scope of this book.

The book is primarily intended as a textbook on modern algebra for undergraduate mathematics students. It is also useful for those who are interested in supplementary reading at a higher level. The text is designed in such a way that it encourages independent thinking and motivates students towards further study. The book covers all major topics in group, ring, vector space and module theory that are usually contained in a standard modern algebra text. In addition, it studies semigroup, group action, Hopf's group, topological groups and Lie groups with their actions, applications of ring theory to algebraic geometry, and defines Zariski topology, as well as applications of module theory to structure theory of rings and homological algebra. Algebraic aspects of classical number theory and algebraic number theory are also discussed with an eye to developing modern cryptography. Topics on applications to algebraic topology, category theory, algebraic geometry, algebraic number theory, cryptography and theoretical computer science interlink the subject with different areas. Each chapter discusses individual topics, starting from the basics, with the help of illustrative examples. This comprehensive text with a broad variety of concepts, applications, examples, exercises and historical notes represents a valuable and unique resource.

Linear differential equations form the central topic of this volume, Galois theory being the unifying theme.A large number of aspects are presented: algebraic theory especially differential Galois theory, formal theory, classification, algorithms to decide solvability in finite terms, monodromy and Hilbert's 21st problem, asymptotics and summability, the inverse problem and linear differential equations in positive characteristic. The appendices aim to help the reader with concepts used, from algebraic geometry, linear algebraic groups, sheaves, and tannakian categories that are used. This volume will become a standard reference for all mathematicians in this area of mathematics, including graduate students.

Quasi-Frobenius rings and Nakayama rings were introduced by T Nakayama in 1939. Since then, these classical artinian rings have continued to fascinate ring theorists with their abundance of properties and structural depth. In 1978, M Harada introduced a new class of artinian rings which were later called Harada rings in his honour. Quasi-Frobenius rings, Nakayama rings and Harada rings are very closely interrelated. As a result, from a new perspective, we may study the classical artinian rings through their interaction and overlap with Harada rings. The objective of this seminal work is to present the structure of Harada rings and provide important applications of this structure to the classical artinian rings. In the process, we cover many topics on artinian rings, using a wide variety of concepts from the theory of rings and modules. In particular, we consider the following topics, all of which are currently of much interest and ongoing research: Nakayama permutations, Nakayama automorphisms, Fuller's theorem on i-pairs, artinian rings with self-duality, skew-matrix rings, the classification of Nakayama rings, Nakayama group algebras, the Faith conjecture, constructions of local quasi-Frobenius rings, lifting modules, and extending modules. In our presentation of these topics, the reader will be able to retrace the history of artinian rings.

From Math Reviews: This is Volume II of a two-volume introductory text in classical algebra. The text moves carefully with many details so that readers with some basic knowledge of algebra can read it without difficulty. The book can be recommended either as a textbook for some particular algebraic topic or as a reference book for consultations in a selected fundamental branch of algebra. The book contains a wealth of material. Amongst the topics covered in Volume II the reader can find: the theory of ordered fields (e.g., with reformulation of the fundamental theorem of algebra in terms of ordered fields, with Sylvester's theorem on the number of real roots), Nullstellen-theorems (e.g., with Artin's solution of Hilbert's 17th problem and Dubois'theorem), fundamentals of the theory of quadratic forms, of valuations, local fields and modules. The book also contains some lesser known or nontraditional results; for instance, Tsen's results on solubility of systems of polynomial equations with a sufficiently large number of indeterminates. These two volumes constitute a very good, readable and comprehensive survey of classical algebra and present a valuable contribution to the literature on this subject.

The structure theory of abelian extensions of commutative rings is a subjectwhere commutative algebra and algebraic number theory overlap. This exposition is aimed at readers with some background in either of these two fields. Emphasis is given to the notion of a normal basis, which allows one to view in a well-known conjecture in number theory (Leopoldt's conjecture) from a new angle. Methods to construct certain extensions quite explicitly are also described at length.

Multiplicative Theory of Ideals