Submitted:
13 April 2025
Posted:
14 April 2025
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Abstract
Let \( K \) be an algebraically closed field of characteristic zero. The generalized Weyl algebra \( A_{n,f} \) is defined by generators \( x_1, x_2, \dots, x_n, y_1, \dots, y_n, z_1, \dots, z_n \) subject to certain commutation relations and additional structure determined by a collection of functions \( f = (f_1, \dots, f_n) \). We focus on the structure of left and right ideals in \( A_{n,f}(K) \), particularly proving that every left or right ideal can be generated by two elements. The proof is based on showing that if a left ideal can be generated by three elements, it can be reduced to two elements by applying the Noetherian property of the ring and an iterative reduction process. This result complements the simplicity of \( A_{n,f}(K) \), as established in prior work.
Keywords:
Generalized Weyl Algebras
; Stafford's Theorem
; Left Ideals
1. Introduction
In [2], Stafford proved that every left or right ideal of the Weyl algebra , where K is a field of characteristic zero, is generated by two elements. This result was extended in [3] by Caro and Levcovitz, who demonstrated the same property for the ring of differential operators , which is defined over the ring of formal power series .
The concept of generalized Weyl algebras was introduced by Bavula in [5] and has since become a central topic in the study of noncommutative algebra. Generalized Weyl algebras have been extensively studied by various authors, both prior to and following Bavula’s definition. Noteworthy contributions to the theory include the works of Hodges [6,10], Jordan [11], Joseph [4], Rosenberg [12], Smith [7], and Stafford [13]. Several important families of algebras, including the Weyl algebra and primitive quotients of , can be constructed as generalized Weyl algebras.
In this paper, we prove the result that every left or right ideal of a generalized Weyl algebra is generated by two elements. This result aligns with the conjecture that in any (noncommutative) Noetherian simple ring, every left or right ideal is generated by two elements. To prove this, we follow the method of Stafford’s theorem as presented in Bjork’s book [1], making the necessary modifications to address the specific structure of generalized Weyl algebras.
Let K be an algebraically closed field with characteristic zero. The generalized Weyl algebra of degree n is an algebra generated by with identity subject to the following relations
for all ,
for all and .
A polynomial f is said to be separating if for any pair of roots , of f, .
If each is separating then, is simple.
2. Statements and Structure of Proof
Theorem 1.
Every left(right) ideal in can be generated by two elements.
Our first key observation is that it is sufficient to prove that if a left ideal L is generated by three elements, then it can be generated by two elements. To demonstrate this, suppose the claim holds and let L be a left ideal. Since is a left Noetherian ring, L has a finite set of generators . If , we can find elements and such that
and thus L is generated by the set . By repeatedly applying this reasoning, we can reduce the number of generators of L to two.
Theorem 2.
Let a,b,c be three elements in . Then there exist d and e in such that .
Theorem 2 implies that
We only need to demonstrate that the right-hand side is contained in the left-hand side, as the reverse inclusion is straightforward. Specifically, we need to show that a and b belong to the sum . We have
and similarly, we can show that . Therefore, the result follows.
If , we obtain the subring
of .
Now, since commute with the elements of , we get the polynomial ring
If , we define and the polynomial subring .
Proposition 1.
(r) Given , there exists some and and in such that .
In particular, when we get,
Proposition 2.
There exists some and and in such that .
Proposition 4 is essentially one part of the proof of Theorem 2. Starting from Proposition 4, we can begin reducing the number of y-variables in the polynomial .
From this point onward, we focus our attention on the induction process as r moves from to 0, which will ultimately prove Proposition 4.
The strategy in the following proofs is that each step is motivated by and derived from the subsequent one. Thus, we employ a backward argument until we reach Section 4.
Proposition 3.
Let and let where . If u and v are two elements in with , then there exists and such that .
Proof.
We will use induction. If , choose . Since is an Ore domain, we know that . Therefore, there exists . Thus, we have .
We will apply Proposition 5 to prove that Proposition 3(r+1) implies Proposition 3(r). By assumption, there exists such that . Let and .
If we can find such that , then Proposition 3(r) follows with replaced by and replaced by . Therefore, without loss of generality, we assume that and from the start. Thus, we can write , and we assume both and are nonzero, using the fact that .
Similarly, since is a right Ore domain, we can find nonzero elements s and t such that .
Now, apply Proposition 5 to with and . This gives and such that
which implies that
Let us now consider the left ideal
If we can prove that and belong to L, then it follows that , which gives Proposition 3(r) with and .
First, observe that
where the additional term is zero because . Rewriting the expression, we get
Second, we have
Thus, the proof is complete.. □
3. Partial Quotient Rings of
If , we define as the quotient ring of . Since the elements commute with the elements in , we also obtain the division ring , which, by definition, is the quotient ring of .
Next, we define . If , then . If , then is referred to as a partial quotient ring of . Furthermore, if , we can express r as , where and .
Lemma 1.
Let and let u and v belong to with . Then there exists some such that + .
It is straightforward to observe that Proposition 5 and Lemma 6 imply each other. Lemma 6 asserts that , where and are elements of . In the partial quotient ring , we can find some such that , where and are elements of . By the properties of an Ore domain, it follows that .
On the other hand, since , we have the following containment:
Thus, we obtain:
To prove Lemma 6, we will use the ring , which appears as a subring of . First, we note that is a subring of S, and that S contains .
Proposition 4.
Let be some finite set of K-linearly independent elements in and let . Let be a free S-module of rank and let denote the submodule generated by . Then there exists some such that .
We’ll postpone the proof of Proposition 7 for now.
Proposition 5.
Let and and let be a finite set in . Then there exists some such that .
Proof.
For , the result follows immediately since is an Ore domain. Suppose and . Then can be expressed in the form:
where , , and . Since is an Ore domain, we can find a common nonzero multiple of ’s. Thus, we have:
Applying this for each , we obtain a certain such that . Therefore, if is a nontrivial left common multiple of , we get .
□
Proof.
Proof of Lemma 6. Let us remove from and consider the subring
which we denote by . Now, .
Let be the elements that occur in Lemma 6. We can express v as
where are K-linearly independent elements in , and belong to .
Now, since is a simple ring, the two-sided ideal generated by is the entire ring . This gives finite sets and in such that
and thus,
Identifying with a subring of , we conclude that
Sublemma 1: To each m-tuple in , there exists some such that
Proof: Since , it follows from Proposition 8 that there exists some such that for each , and in addition .
Using Proposition 7, we get some such that
Since S is a subring of , it follows that
Consider the -linear map from to defined by and for each . Then, the image of becomes .
Since and belong to , we see that for , so that . We conclude, using the above equality, that
Thus, we obtain
The other direction is obvious, and hence
Proof continued: Let us apply Sublemma 1 with . This gives some such that
Recall , and since commutes with in for all j, we get
and hence
Let us now apply Sublemma 1 with u replaced by and with . This gives such that
Using the previous equation, we can rewrite the left-hand side and conclude that
In the next step, we apply Sublemma 1 with and u replaced by , and so on. After t steps, we can conclude that
where the last equality follows because . Hence, Lemma 6 follows with , that is,
□
Some results : , .
4. The Ring S
where D is division ring . Each element in S can be written as . The largest integer t such that in is called degree of the element.
Proposition 6.
The ring S is simple ring i.e. it has no non-trivial two-sided ideals.
Proposition 7.(Division Algorithm): Let α and with . Then there exists γ and such that
where or .
Proof.
It is straightforward. □
Proposition 8.
Let α be a non-zero element in S. Then the left S-module S/Sα has finite length.
Proof.
Suppose that . Given an element in S, by Proposition 10 we can find elements in S and in such that
Thus, the -vector space has no dimension greater than t. On the other hand, each S-submodule of induces a -subspace of . Hence, . □
Let K be a subfield in S then ia a subring in S.
Proposition 9.
Let be K- linearly independent elements in and and let be a free S-module of rank m. Let M be the S - submodule of which is generated by then .
Proof.
Let us first observe that both the assumption and the conclusion are unchanged if the m-tuple is replaced by an m-tuple where and is an invertible matrix of size with . While we replace by under K-linear transformation , we also replace the free generators of by where and .
By reordering the if required, we may assume that . Hence, there exists a positive integer w and some such that while if . If , we can write where and .
We can assume that the y-polynomials have decreasing degrees. If , we can choose such that has degree and replace by while are unchanged.
Armed with these normalizations, we begin to prove . First, let . We can assume that where . If , where .
Using the relations , , , , , ,
and so on.
The -fold commutator of and y will be for , while it is 0 for . Since and , we have
Proceeding in this way, we get
After dividing by , we get
Since for all and , we have
Suppose and take the -fold commutator with z; then we’ll get
where is the leading coefficient of , and finally, we can divide by the coefficient of to get .
Restricting attention to the -tuple and the S-module , the Proposition follows by induction over m. □
Proposition 10.
Let be K - linearly independent elements in and let M be submodule of such that the S - module has finite length. If we can find such that .
Proof.
We proceed by induction on the length of the S-module . If , there is nothing to prove. Therefore, assume that the Proposition holds for any submodule with . By Proposition 12, there exists some such that
Consider an S-submodule such that with irreducible. The existence of is guaranteed by the fact that has finite length.
Additionally, since has finite length and the ring S is not left Artinian, we conclude that there exists some non-zero such that for each . In other words, the S-submodule . Since S is an Ore domain, we can choose such that for each .
Applying the induction hypothesis to and , we obtain the existence of such that
Now, define . If , the proof is complete, as provides the desired element. Otherwise, consider the submodule . We claim that . Clearly, because
Since , where , it follows that
and the module is either zero or irreducible because is irreducible. However, . Therefore, is irreducible. Hence, .
Next, define . Since and for all , we have
Thus, . Since
we conclude that
On the other hand, we have
Consequently,
Therefore, satisfies the required condition. □
Corollary 1.
Let and be K - linearly independent elements in . Then there exists some such that .
Proof.
Proposition 11 applied to and used on the direct sum of copies of S, implies that the S- module has a finite length. Now the result follows from Proposition 13 with and . □
Recall that we consider the ring . If , we first consider the division ring , and then we observe that , where x is the variable and y represents . If we allow the element in Proposition 2 to be an arbitrary non-zero element in S, we obtain a more general statement. In conclusion, Proposition 2 holds if we can establish the necessary conditions.
Proposition 11.
Let be K - linearly independent elements in and let and consider the free S - module then there exists some such that .
Proof.
We can certainly identify with the S-submodule of generated by . By Corollary 14, we can choose such that
Consider an element . Then there exists and such that . By Proposition 10, we can write for some elements and in S. According to Equation , there exist , such that
Therefore,
Hence,
Now set . Our goal is to show that .
First, note that
Second, we claim that
Indeed, consider . Then there exist and such that . So, using Equation , we can write
for some elements , . Therefore, as we claimed.
Finally, since
we have . By Equation 10, we conclude that . The proof is complete. □
5. The Final Part of the Proof of Theorem 2
We have established Proposition 4, which provides an element and elements d and e in such that . This result serves as the basis for an induction, which allows us to prove the following counterparts to Proposition .
Proposition 12.(r) There exists some and and in such that .
When , is a non-zero scalar in the field K, and Theorem 2 follows. Proposition 4 corresponds to the case . It remains to prove the induction step: Proposition Proposition for all . This can be demonstrated in the same manner as the implications Proposition Proposition , by replacing Proposition 5 with...
Proposition 13.
Let and and let u and v in with . Then there exists some and such that .
We introduce the ring which is partial quotient ring of . If then for some and some .
Lemma 2.
Let and let u and v in with , then there exists some such that .
It is straightforward to verify that Lemma 18 and Proposition 17 imply each other. To prove Lemma 18, we will use the ring , which appears as a subring of . We observe that is a subring of , and it also contains the generalized Weyl algebra of degree one.
Proposition 14.
Let be K- linearly independent elements in and . Let be free -module of rank and let denote the submodule generated by . Then there exists some such that
.
We’ll postpone the proof Proposition 19 for now
Proposition 15.
Let . If then there exists such that for all j.
Proof.
Let . Then can be written as a finite sum
where and . Choose to be a common multiple of the ’s. Then, we have
Applying this result to each , we obtain a certain such that . Therefore, if is a non-zero left common multiple of , we get for every j. □
Proof.
Proof of Lemma 18. Suppose
Then, we have the isomorphism . We can express , where are K-linearly independent elements in and are elements of . Since is simple, it follows that the two-sided ideal generated by is the entire ring .
This implies the existence of finite sets and such that
and hence
Identifying as a subring of , we conclude that
At this stage, we need to...
Sublemma 1: To each m-tuple in , there exists some such that
Proof: Since , it follows from Proposition 20 that there exists some such that for each , and in addition, .
Using Proposition 19, we obtain some such that
Since is a subring of , it follows that
Consider an -linear map from to defined by and for each .
Since , it follows that
Thus, we have
Finally, this simplifies to
and the Sublemma follows since the opposite direction is obvious.
Proof continued. Applying the Sublemma with , we obtain some such that
Recall that , and since and commute in for all j, we have
so that
Now, let us apply Sublemma 1 with u replaced by and with . This gives such that
Using the previous equation, we can rewrite the left-hand side and conclude that
Similarly, for and with u replaced by , and continuing in this way, after t steps we conclude that
where the last equality follows because . Hence, Lemma 18 follows with . □
Let .
Proposition 16.
S is a simple ring.
Proposition 17.
Let . Then the left S - module has a finite length.
Proposition 18.
Let be a finite set of K - linearly independent elements in and let and let be a free S - module of rank m. Let M be the S - submodule of which is generated by . Then .
Proof.
Let us first observe that both the assumption and the conclusion remain unchanged if the m-tuple is replaced by an m-tuple where and is an invertible matrix of size with . While we replace by under the K-linear transformation , we also replace the free generators of by where and .
By reordering the if necessary, we may assume that
Hence, there exists a positive integer w and some such that and for . If , we can write
where and .
We can also assume that the polynomials have decreasing degrees. If , we can choose such that , and replace by while leaving unchanged.
Armed with these normalizations, we begin to prove that . First, let . We can assume that
where and .
Using the relations
and so on, we proceed as follows.
For , we get
where ; and for , we have .
The -fold commutator of and y will be for and 0 for . Since
and
we have
Proceeding in this way, we obtain
After dividing by , we get
Since for all and , we have
Suppose . Taking the -fold commutator with z, we obtain
where is the leading coefficient of . Finally, we can divide by the coefficient of to get
Restricting our attention to the -tuple and the S-module , the proposition follows by induction on m. □
Proposition 19.
Let be K - linearly independent elements in and let M be a submodule of such that the S- module has a finite length. If we can find such that .
Proof.
Analogous to Proposition 13. □
Corollary 2.
Let and let be K-linearly independent elements in . Then there exists some such that .
Proof.
Analogous to Corollary 14. □
Recall that . If , consider . If we allow the element in Proposition 4.7 to be an arbitrary non-zero element in S, we obtain a more general statement. Summing up, Proposition 19 follows once we establish...
Proposition 20.
Let be K - linearly independent elements in and let and consider the free S - module . Then there exists some such that .
Proof.
Analogous to Proposition 15. □
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