On Going Down in Polynomial Rings

Abstract

Our main purpose is to enlarge upon the studies of McAdam [9; 10] on the property of going down (GD) for prime ideals in extensions of (commutative integral) domains. Unlike the investigations of McAdam and the earlier work of Krull [8] and Cohen-Seidenberg [4] on GD and the related property of going up (GU), this paper is not primarily concerned with integral extensions. Consideration of more general extensions of domains A ⊂ B is facilitated by the following basic definitions. A prime ideal P of A is unibranched in B if there exists exactly one prime ideal Q of B satisfying Q ∩ A = P.