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So I read an interesting theorem about surjective ring homomorphisms and I have two questions that I cannot answer myself.

Motivation: A ring hom is surjective iff it send ideals to ideas.

It turns out that a surjective ring hom also sends prime ideals to prime ideals. I was wondering would the converse be true? I cannot think of any elementary examples.

Another question I had in mind is that could a surjective ring homomorphism send a maximal ideal to a prime ideal that is not maximal? I cannot seem to think of an example either.

Many thanks in advance!

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  • $\begingroup$ The embedding of $\mathbb{Q}$ into $\mathbb{R}$ sends the unique prime ideal of $\mathbb{Q}$, namely $(0)$, to the unique prime ideal of $\mathbb{R}$ (namely, $(0)$). $\endgroup$ Commented Dec 15, 2022 at 19:55
  • $\begingroup$ @ArturoMagidin That's a nice example, it's always easy to forget the basics $\endgroup$ Commented Dec 15, 2022 at 19:57
  • $\begingroup$ As to your second question, no: the Lattice Isomorphism Theorem (or 4th Isomorphism Theorem) tells you that if $f\colon R\to S$ is a surjective ring homomorphism, then this induces an inclusion-preserving correspondence between ideals of $R$ that contain $\ker(f)$ and ideals of $S$. If $M$ is a maximal ideal of $R$ that contains $\ker(f)$, then it is mapped to a maximal ideal of $S$. If $M$ does not contain $\ker(f)$, then it is mapped to the same thing as $M+\ker(f)=R$, which is all of $S$ which is not prime. $\endgroup$ Commented Dec 15, 2022 at 19:57
  • $\begingroup$ The image of $M$ is isomorphic to $M/(M\cap\ker(f))$. By the Second (or Third, depending on your numbering) Isomorphism Theorem, this essentially the same as $(M+\ker(f))/\ker(f)$. If $M$ does not contain $\ker(f)$, but is maximal, then since $M+\ker(f)$ is an ideal that properly contains $M$, it must be all of $R$. $\endgroup$ Commented Dec 15, 2022 at 20:07
  • $\begingroup$ @ArturoMagidin Ah! I see! That's brilliant - thanks a lot! Feel free making this into an answer :) $\endgroup$ Commented Dec 15, 2022 at 20:10

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An easy example of a non-surjective ring morphism that sends prime ideals to prime ideals is the embedding of a field into any extensions field: the only prime ideal of the field is $(0)$, which of course is mapped to the only prime ideal of the larger field. For example, $\mathbb{Q}\hookrightarrow \mathbb{R}$.

Could a surjective ring homomorphism send a maximal ideal to a prime ideal that is not maximal?

No. If $f\colon R\to S$ is a surjective ring homomorphism, and $M$ is a maximal ideal of $R$, then either $f(M)$ is maximal in $S$, or $f(M)=S$. To see this, note that the Lattice Isomorphism Theorem establishes an inclusion-preserving correspondence between ideals of $S$ and ideals of $R$ that contain $\ker(f)$. If $M$ contains $\ker(f)$, then because it is maximal in $R$ it follows by this correspondence that its image is maximal in $S$. If $M$ does not contain $\ker(f)$, then since $M$ is maximal and $M\lt M+\ker(f)\leq R$ with $M+\ker(f)$ an ideal, it follows that $M+\ker(f)=R$. Thus, $f(M) = f(M+\ker(f)) = f(R) = S$. So the image of $M$ is either maximal or the whole ring; it cannot be a non-maximal prime, if $f$ is surjective.


Note that the assertion that a morphism that sends ideals to ideals must be surjective requires rings to be unital and maps to be unital (rings to have a multiplicative identity, and morphisms to send the multiplicative identity of the domain to the multiplicative identity of the image). A simple counterexample without this assumption is to take the zero map into a nontrivial ring.

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