In mathematics, the characteristic of a ringR, often denoted char, is defined to be the smallest number of times one must use the ring's multiplicative identity in a sum to get the additive identity. If this sum never reaches the additive identity the ring is said to have characteristic zero. That is, char is the smallest positive number n such that if such a number n exists, and 0 otherwise. The special definition of the characteristic zero is motivated by the equivalent definitions given in, where the characteristic zero is not required to be considered separately. The characteristic may also be taken to be the exponent of the ring's additive group, that is, the smallest positive n such that for every element a of the ring. Some authors do not include the multiplicative identity element in their requirements for a ring, and this definition is suitable for that convention; otherwise the two definitions are equivalent due to the distributive law in rings.
The characteristic is the natural number n such that R contains a subringisomorphic to the factor ring Z/nZ, which is the image of the above homomorphism.
When the non-negative integers are partially ordered by divisibility, then 1 is the smallest and 0 is the largest. Then the characteristic of a ring is the smallest value of n for which. If nothing "smaller" than 0 will suffice, then the characteristic is 0. This is the appropriate partial ordering because of such facts as that is the least common multiple of and, and that no ring homomorphism exists unless divides.
The characteristic of a ring R is n precisely if the statement for all implies k is a multiple of n.
Case of rings
If R and S are rings and there exists a ring homomorphism R → S, then the characteristic of S divides the characteristic of R. This can sometimes be used to exclude the possibility of certain ring homomorphisms. The only ring with characteristic 1 is the trivial ring, which has only a single element. If a nontrivial ring R does not have any nontrivial zero divisors, then its characteristic is either 0 or prime. In particular, this applies to all fields, to all integral domains, and to all division rings. Any ring of characteristic 0 is infinite. The ring Z/nZ of integers modulon has characteristic n. If R is a subring of S, then R and S have the same characteristic. For instance, if q is an irreducible polynomial with coefficients in the field Z/pZ where p is prime, then the factor ring is a field of characteristic p. Since the complex numbers contain the integers, their characteristic is 0. A Z/nZ-algebra is equivalently a ring whose characteristic divides n. This is because for every ring R there is a ring homomorphism Z → R, and this map factors through Z/nZ if and only if the characteristic of R divides n. In this case for any r in the ring, then adding r to itself n times gives. If a commutative ring R has prime characteristicp, then we have for all elements x and y in R – the "freshman's dream" holds for power p. The map then defines a ring homomorphism It is called the Frobenius homomorphism. If R is an integral domain it is injective.
Case of fields
As mentioned above, the characteristic of any field is either 0 or a prime number. A field of non-zero characteristic is called a field of finite characteristic or positive characteristic or prime characteristic. For any field F, there is a minimal subfield, namely the ', the smallest subfield containing 1F. It is isomorphic either to the rational number fieldQ, or to a finite field of prime order, Fp; the structure of the prime field and the characteristic each determine the other. Fields of characteristic zero have the most familiar properties; for practical purposes they resemble subfields of the complex numbers. The p-adic fields or any finite extension of them are characteristic zero fields, much applied in number theory, that are constructed from rings of characteristic pk, as k → ∞. For any ordered field, as the field of rational numbersQ or the field of real numbersR, the characteristic is 0. Thus, number fields and the field of complex numbers C are of characteristic zero. Actually, every field of characteristic zero is the quotient field of a ring Q/P where X is a set of variables and P a set of polynomials in Q. The finite field GF has characteristic p. There exist infinite fields of prime characteristic. For example, the field of all rational functions over Z/pZ, the algebraic closure of Z/pZ or the field of formal Laurent seriesZ/pZ). The characteristic exponent is defined similarly, except that it is equal to 1 if the characteristic is zero; otherwise it has the same value as the characteristic. The size of any finite ring of prime characteristic p is a power of p. Since in that case it must contain Z/pZ' it must also be a vector space over that field and from linear algebra we know that the sizes of finite vector spaces over finite fields are a power of the size of the field. This also shows that the size of any finite vector space is a prime power.
