In mathematics, specifically commutative algebra, a proper ideal Q of a commutative ring A is said to be primary if whenever xy is an element of Q then x or yn is also an element of Q, for some n > 0. For example, in the ring of integers Z, (pn) is a primary ideal if p is a prime number. The notion of primary ideals is important in commutative ring theory because every ideal of a Noetherian ring has a primary decomposition, that is, can be written as an intersection of finitely many primary ideals. This result is known as the Lasker–Noether theorem. Consequently, an irreducible ideal of a Noetherian ring is primary. Various methods of generalizing primary ideals to noncommutative rings exist, but the topic is most often studied for commutative rings. Therefore, the rings in this article are assumed to be commutative rings with identity. Examples and properties The definition can be rephrased in a more symmetric manner: an ideal is primary if, whenever , we have or or . (Here denotes the radical of .) An ideal Q of R is primary if and only if every zero divisor in R/Q is nilpotent. (Compare this to the case of prime ideals, where P is prime if and only if every zero divisor in R/P is actually zero.) Any prime ideal is primary, and moreover an ideal is prime if and only if it is primary and semiprime (also called radical ideal in the commutative case). Every primary ideal is primal. If Q is a primary ideal, then the radical of Q is necessarily a prime ideal P, and this ideal is called the associated prime ideal of Q. In this situation, Q is said to be P-primary. On the other hand, an ideal whose radical is prime is not necessarily primary: for example, if , , and , then is prime and , but we have , , and for all n > 0, so is not primary. The primary decomposition of is ; here is -primary and is -primary. An ideal whose radical is maximal, however, is primary. Every ideal with radical is contained in a smallest -primary ideal: all elements such that for some . The smallest -primary ideal containing is called the th symbolic power of . If P is a maximal prime ideal, then any ideal containing a power of P is