Concept
In ring theory, a branch of mathematics, a semisimple algebra is an associative artinian algebra over a field which has trivial Jacobson radical (only the zero element of the algebra is in the Jacobson radical). If the algebra is finite-dimensional this is equivalent to saying that it can be expressed as a Cartesian product of simple subalgebras. The Jacobson radical of an algebra over a field is the ideal consisting of all elements that annihilate every simple left-module. The radical contains all nilpotent ideals, and if the algebra is finite-dimensional, the radical itself is a nilpotent ideal. A finite-dimensional algebra is then said to be semisimple if its radical contains only the zero element. An algebra A is called simple if it has no proper ideals and A2 = {ab | a, b ∈ A} ≠ {0}. As the terminology suggests, simple algebras are semisimple. The only possible ideals of a simple algebra A are A and {0}. Thus if A is simple, then A is not nilpotent. Because A2 is an ideal of A and A is simple, A2 = A. By induction, An = A for every positive integer n, i.e. A is not nilpotent. Any self-adjoint subalgebra A of n × n matrices with complex entries is semisimple. Let Rad(A) be the radical of A. Suppose a matrix M is in Rad(A). Then MM lies in some nilpotent ideals of A, therefore (MM)k = 0 for some positive integer k. By positive-semidefiniteness of MM, this implies MM = 0. So M x is the zero vector for all x, i.e. M = 0. If {Ai} is a finite collection of simple algebras, then their Cartesian product A=Π Ai is semisimple. If (ai) is an element of Rad(A) and e1 is the multiplicative identity in A1 (all simple algebras possess a multiplicative identity), then (a1, a2, ...) · (e1, 0, ...) = (a1, 0..., 0) lies in some nilpotent ideal of Π Ai. This implies, for all b in A1, a1b is nilpotent in A1, i.e. a1 ∈ Rad(A1). So a1 = 0. Similarly, ai = 0 for all other i. It is less apparent from the definition that the converse of the above is also true, that is, any finite-dimensional semisimple algebra is isomorphic to a Cartesian product of a finite number of simple algebras.