Efficient Generation of Prime Ideals in Polynomial Rings up to Radical

Abstract

We call an ideal I of a ring R radically perfect if among all ideals whose radical is equal to the radical of I, the one with the least number of generators has this number of generators equal to the height of I. Let R be a ring and R[X] be the polynomial ring over R. We prove that if R is a strong S-domain of finite Krull dimension and if each nonzero element of R is contained in finitely many maximal ideals of R, then each maximal ideal of R[X] of maximal height is the J max-radical of an ideal generated by two elements. We also show that if R is a Prüfer domain of finite Krull dimension with coprimely packed set of maximal ideals, then for each maximal ideal M of R, the prime ideal MR[X] of R[X] is radically perfect if and only if R is of dimension one and each maximal ideal of R is the radical of a principal ideal. We then prove that the above conditions on the Prüfer domain R also imply that a power of each finitely generated maximal ideal of R is principal. This result naturally raises the question whether the same conditions on R imply that the Picard group of R is torsion, and we prove this to be so when either R is an almost Dedekind domain or a Prüfer domain with an extra condition imposed on it.