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A flat ring map is faithfully flat exactly when it detects proper ideals and is surjective on spectra
Statement
Assume the Axiom of Choice for the prime and maximal ideal existence used in the spectral reformulations.
Let be a flat homomorphism of commutative rings. The following are equivalent:
- is faithfully flat.
- For every proper ideal , the extended ideal is proper.
- Every maximal ideal of has a prime ideal of lying over it.
- The map on prime spectra is surjective.
Facts & Assumptions
Given: A flat ring map .
Faithful flatness for the -module is equivalent to detecting every nonzero module and every residue field fibre (For a flat module, faithful flatness is equivalent to detecting nonzero modules and residue fields).
A flat ring map is precisely a flat -module structure on its target (Flat and faithfully flat modules and ring homomorphisms).
Proof
By [L2], the flatness of is the flatness of the -module . For a proper ideal , the quotient is nonzero, and Therefore [L1] says that is faithfully flat exactly when for every proper ideal , which is equivalent to . So 1 and 2 are equivalent.
A prime of lying over a maximal ideal exists exactly when the fibre ring is nonzero. Since and is maximal, this is precisely the maximal-ideal fibre condition in [L1]. Thus 1 and 3 are equivalent.
Assume 1 and let be prime. By the prime-fibre form of [L1], the ring is nonzero. Choose a prime ideal , and let be its preimage in . Because the composite factors through , every element of maps to in , so . If , then its image in the field is a unit, hence its image in is a unit and cannot lie in the prime . Therefore , so . Thus a prime of lies over , and 1 implies 4.
Condition 4 obviously implies 3. Since step 1.2 gives 3 if and only if 1, condition 4 is equivalent to 1 as well.
Therefore 1, 2, 3, and 4 are equivalent.