AMALGAMATED MODULES ALONG AN IDEAL

Let R and S be two commutative rings, J be an ideal of S and f : R → S be a ring homomorphism. The amalgamation of R and S along J with respect to f, denoted by R ⋈f J, is the special subring of R × S defined by R ⋈f J = {(a, f(a) + j) | a ∈ R, j ∈ J}. In this paper, we study some basic properties of a special kind of R ⋈f J-modules, called the amalgamation of M and N along J with respect to ��, and defined by M ⋈�� JN := {(m, ��(m) + n) | m ∈ M and n ∈ JN}, where �� : M → N is an R-module homomorphism. The new results generalize some known results on the amalgamation of rings and the duplication of a module along an ideal.