ON n-ABSORBING IDEALS AND THE n-KRULL DIMENSION OF A COMMUTATIVE RING

Let R be a commutative ring with $1{\neq}0$ and n a positive integer. In this article, we introduce the n-Krull dimension of R, denoted $dim_n\;R$, which is the supremum of the lengths of chains of n-absorbing ideals of R. We study the n-Krull dimension in several classes of commutative rings. For example, the n-Krull dimension of an Artinian ring is finite for every positive integer n. In particular, if R is an Artinian ring with k maximal ideals and l(R) is the length of a composition series for R, then $dim_n\;R=l(R)-k$ for some positive integer n. It is proved that a Noetherian domain R is a Dedekind domain if and only if $dim_n\;R=n$ for every positive integer n if and only if $dim_2\;R=2$. It is shown that Krull's (Generalized) Principal Ideal Theorem does not hold in general when prime ideals are replaced by n-absorbing ideals for some n > 1.