Progress in Commutative Algebra 2: Closures, Finiteness and Factorization

This volume contains surveys on aspects of closure operations, finiteness conditions and factorization. Closure operations on ideals and modules are a bridge between noetherian and nonnoetherian commutative algebra. It contains a nice guide to closure operations by Epstein, but also contains an article on test ideals by Schwede and Tucker and one by Enescu which discusses the action of the Frobenius on finite dimensional vector spaces both of which are related to tight closure.

Finiteness properties of rings and modules or the lack of them come up in all aspects of commutative algebra. However, in the study of non-noetherian rings it is much easier to find a ring having a finite number of prime ideals. The editors have included papers by Boynton and Sather-Wagstaff and by Watkins that discuss the relationship of rings with finite Krull dimension and their finite extensions. Finiteness properties in commutative group rings are discussed in Glaz and Schwarz's paper. And Olberding's selection presents us with constructions that produce rings whose integral closure in their field of fractions is not finitely generated. The final three papers in this volume investigate factorization in a broad sense. The first paper by Celikbas and Eubanks-Turner discusses the partially ordered set of prime ideals of the projective line over the integers. The editors have also included a paper on zero divisor graphs by Coykendall, Sather-Wagstaff, Sheppardson and Spiroff. The final paper, by Chapman and Krause, concerns non-unique factorization.