A going-up theorem for arbitrary chains of prime ideals

Abstract

We prove that if an extension R ⊆ T of commutative rings satisfies the going-up property (for instance, if T is an integral extension of R), then any increasing chain of prime ideals of R (indexed by an arbitrary linearly ordered set) is covered by some corresponding chain of prime ideals of T. As a corollary, we recover the recent result of Kang and Oh that any such chain of prime ideals of an integral domain D is covered by a corresponding chain in some valuation overring of D.