Fuzzy ideals in commutative rings

Abstract

In this thesis, we are concerned with various aspects of fuzzy ideals of commutative rings. The central theorem is that of primary decomposition of a fuzzy ideal as an intersection of fuzzy primary ideals in a commutative Noetherian ring. We establish the existence and the two uniqueness theorems of primary decomposition of any fuzzy ideal with membership value 1 at the zero element. In proving this central result, we build up the necessary tools such as fuzzy primary ideals and the related concept of fuzzy maximal ideals, fuzzy prime ideals and fuzzy radicals. Another approach explores various characterizations of fuzzy ideals, namely, generation and level cuts of fuzzy ideals, relation between fuzzy ideals, congruences and quotient fuzzy rings. We also tie up several authors' seemingly different definitions of fuzzy prime, primary, semiprimary and fuzzy radicals available in the literature and show some of their equivalences and implications, providing counter-examples where certain implications fail.