Order complex of ideals in a commutative ring with identity

Abstract

Order complex is an important object associated to a partially ordered set. Following a suggestion from V. A. Vassiliev (1994), we investigate an order complex associated to the partially ordered set of nontrivial ideals in a commutative ring with identity. We determine the homotopy type of the geometric realization for the order complex associated to a general commutative ring with identity. We show that this complex is contractible except for semilocal rings with trivial Jacobson radical when it is homotopy equivalent to a sphere.