Published online by Cambridge University Press: 26 February 2010
In this note we present a simple way of obtaining the universal field of fractions of certain free rings as a subfield of an ultrapower of a (by no means unique) skew field. This method of embedding was discovered by Amitsur in [1]; our presentation uses Cohn's specialization lemma and the embedding is constructed in terms of full matrices over the rings in question (Theorem 3.2). In particular, if k is an infinite commutative field, the universal field of fractions of a free k-algebra can be realized as a subfield of an ultrapower of any skew extension of k, with centre k, which is infinite dimensional over k. Thus many problems concerning the universal field of fractions of a free k-algebra can be settled by studying skew extensions of k of relatively simple structure. More precisely and more generally, let E be a skew field with centre k and denote by R the free E-ring on X over k. Write U for the universal field of fractions of R and assume that U embeds in an ultrapower of a skew field D. Then by Łos' theorem, U inherits the first-order properties of D which can be expressed by universal sentences.