Non-splitting of prime divisors

Abstract

In this study of complete, or integrally closed, ideals in a two-dimensional regular local ring (R, m), Zariski established a one-to-one correspondence between prime divisors of R, i.e. rank 1 discrete valuations v birationally dominating R with residue field of transcendence degree 1 over R/m, and m-primary simple complete ideals Iv in R; cf. [17] and [18]. In this correspondence, the blow-up of such an ideal has unique exceptional prime and the localization at this prime is the valuation ring of a prime divisor of R. In this paper, we will study such ideals in a more general setting, so we begin by recalling some definitions and background results.