How statement and proof provenance work
The first chip identifies the source of the statement or construction; the second identifies the source of its local proof or verification.
- Literature-sourced: the exact statement appears in a cited source; only wording and notation differ.
- AI-adapted: a semantically identical restatement of literature-sourced material, modulo indexing, notation, and boundary cases adopted by the library.
- AI-generated: a genuinely novel statement formulated by AI, with no source for the claim itself.
These labels describe origin, not correctness: citations and verification chips remain separate evidence.
Classical affine algebraic sets correspond to radical ideals, and irreducible sets to prime ideals
Statement
Assume the Axiom of Choice, inherited from the Nullstellensatz route. For every ideal , . Together with for algebraic , these are inverse inclusion-reversing bijections between radical ideals and algebraic sets. Nonempty irreducible algebraic sets correspond precisely to proper prime ideals, and points to maximal ideals. The empty set corresponds to . For the same correspondence identifies radical ideals of with closed subsets of ; in particular .
Facts & Assumptions
Given: An algebraically closed field , AC, an ideal , and an affine algebraic set . In the relative assertion let be an ideal of .
Under AC and algebraic closure, (Strong Nullstellensatz: I(V(I)) equals the radical of I).
The zero-locus/ideal connection reverses inclusion and closes algebraic sets (Zero loci and vanishing ideals form a Galois connection).
Zero loci are closed under finite unions (Classical affine zero loci form the Zariski closed sets).
Prime ideals are proper and satisfy the product test (Prime ideals and maximal ideals in a commutative ring).
Every maximal ideal has a unique coordinate point (Over an algebraically closed field, every maximal ideal is an evaluation ideal).
Ideals of a quotient correspond to ideals containing its kernel (Correspondence theorem: ideals of correspond to ideals of containing ).
Taking radicals commutes with quotient correspondence (Radicals and quotient correspondence).
Proof
The ring is a finite-variable polynomial ring over algebraically closed , so the strong Nullstellensatz applies with the assumed AC and gives . The other composite is the identity on closed sets by F2. For radical the first composite is also the identity, proving the stated inverse bijections and their inclusion reversal.
If is nonempty irreducible and , then . Irreducibility forces one of these closed sets to be , hence or . Also because has a point. Thus is prime.
Conversely suppose is prime. Then is nonempty, since . If with proper closed subsets, choose and ; these exist by the injective reversing correspondence in step 1.1. The product vanishes on , contradicting primality. Thus is irreducible. For any prime , the elementary implication makes radical, so step 1.1 realizes it by such an .
For a point , evaluation onto has kernel . A proper ideal strictly containing this kernel would contain an with ; subtracting in the kernel puts a nonzero constant in that ideal, hence 1. Thus the kernel is maximal. Conversely F5 writes each maximal ideal as , whose locus is exactly . The unit ideal has empty locus, and the empty set has vanishing ideal .
Let be the quotient and . Its inverse image contains , so its zero locus lies in and equals . Polynomial vanishing upstairs gives . Passing to the quotient using F6 and F7 yields . This also proves the relative closed-set correspondence.
Sources
Source comparison: Milne, Algebraic Geometry, v6.10, 2.13–2.17, 2.20, 2.27–2.28 and §2i, pp. 41–49. Conventions here distinguish arbitrary affine algebraic sets from nonempty irreducible varieties.
Depends on
- Classical affine zero loci form the Zariski closed sets
- The classical vanishing ideal
- Zero loci and vanishing ideals form a Galois connection
- Strong Nullstellensatz: I(V(I)) equals the radical of I
- Over an algebraically closed field, every maximal ideal is an evaluation ideal
- Prime ideals and maximal ideals in a commutative ring
- Correspondence theorem: ideals of $R/I$ correspond to ideals of $R$ containing $I$
- Radicals and quotient correspondence
- The Axiom of Choice
Used by
- A classical affine variety Definition
- The affine-line coordinate, local, and function-field dictionary Example
- A classical affine algebraic set has a unique finite irredundant decomposition Lemma
- Classical affine points are maximal ideals Lemma
- A classical affine variety has a domain coordinate ring, and conversely Theorem
- Classical affine algebraic sets and reduced finitely generated k-algebras are contravariantly equivalent Theorem
- Classical affine morphisms are contravariantly equivalent to coordinate-ring homomorphisms Theorem
- Dominant rational maps to an affine variety correspond to field embeddings Theorem
- Every nonempty principal open is a classical affine variety Theorem
- Regular functions on a principal open are the principal localization Theorem
Dependency tree · two levels
27 results within two dependency steps of this one, each drawn at its shortest distance from it. An arrow runs from a result to what uses it, so the chart reads left to right and ends at this result, which carries a heavier outline. Every node is a link to that result. Click elsewhere on the chart to enlarge it.
Sources
- J. S. Milne, Algebraic Geometry v6.10, 2.13–2.17, 2.20, 2.27–2.28 and §2i, pp. 41–49 (standard reference, not scraped)