On Prime Ideals In Rings Of Semialgebraic Functions

Abstract

It is proved that if p is a prime ideal in the ring S{M) of semialgebraic functions on a semialgebraic set M, the quotient field of S(M)/p is real closed. We also prove that in the case where M is locally closed, the rings S(M) and P(M)—polynomial functions on M—have the same Krull dimension. The proofs do not use the theory of real spectra.