# Zero-dimensional ring without idempotent or nilpotent ideals

I'm looking for an example of a commutative ring $R$ with zero Krull dimension such that $R$ satisfies one of the following conditions:

(1) $R$ has no nonzero proper idempotent ideals, but has a nonzero non-nilpotent ideal.

(2) $R$ has no nonzero nilpotent ideals, but has a nonzero idempotent ideal.

As for (2), I only know that $R$ would be von Neumann regular by a classical theorem of commutative algebra.

Thanks for any help!

• (2) What about the direct product of countable many copies of $\mathbb F_2$? – user26857 Oct 13 '16 at 8:19
• @user26857 Thanks! But, any commutative Noetherian local ring with zero Krull dimension has nilpotent maximal ideal, whence all its ideals are nilpotent. If $F$ is a field and we take $F[x_2,x_3,x_4\ldots]$ and quotient it by $(x_2^2,x_3^3,x_4^4,\ldots)$ could we get a ring having no non-trivial idempotent ideals? – karparvar Oct 13 '16 at 15:46
• (1) It seems that your proposal could be good choice. The maximal ideal $\mathfrak m=(x_2,x_3,\dots)$ of the quotient ring $R=F[X_2,X_3,\dots]/(X_2^2,X_3^3,\dots)$, has the property $\cap_{i\ge 1}\mathfrak m^i=(0)$ (why?). If $I$ is an idempotent ideal, then $I=\cap_{i\ge1}I^i\subseteq\cap_{i\ge 1}\mathfrak m^i=(0)$. – user26857 Oct 13 '16 at 21:00
• @user26857 If we take a nonzero polynomial $f\in R$, then $f=\sum {x_2}^{u_2}{x_3}^{u_3}\dots {x_n}^{u_n}$. Now, if we put $i$ as the maximum value of $\sum {u_t}$ then $f$ would not belong to $m^{i+1}$. Is it a true argument for the proof of $\cap_{i\ge 1}\mathfrak m^i=(0)$? – karparvar Oct 14 '16 at 5:58
• Well, in our case we are working with polynomials, and basically a monomial of total degree $k$ can't be in $(X_2,X_3,\dots)^{k+1}$. – user26857 Oct 15 '16 at 7:14

An example for part (1) may be the ring $R=F[X_2,X_3,\dots]/(X_2^2,X_3^3,\dots)$, where $F$ is a field. At the outset, note that any prime ideal of $R$ is of the form $P/J$, where $J=(X_2^2,X_3^3,\dots)$ and $P$ is a prime ideal of $F[X_2,X_3,\dots]$ containing $J$, so that $P$ contains all the $X_i$'s, whence it is equal to the maximal ideal $M=(X_2,X_3,\dots)$ of $F[X_2,X_3,\dots]$. Thus, $R$ is a local ring of zero Krull dimension with the maximal ideal $\overline M=(\overline X_2,\overline X_3,\dots)$, where the bars refer to modulo $J$. The ideal $\overline M$, having elements of arbitrary high nilpotency indices, is not nilpotent. On the other hand, since any non-zero polynomial of degree $k$ in $\overline M$ could not belong to $\overline M^{k+1}$, we deduce that $\cap_{i\ge 1}\overline M^i=(0)$. Now, if $I$ is a proper idempotent ideal of $R$, we get the conclusion that $I=\cap_{i\ge1}I^i\subseteq\cap_{i\ge 1}\overline M^i=(0)$.