Noetherian rings of low global dimension and syzygetic prime ideals

Abstract

Let $R$ be a Noetherian ring. We prove that $R$ has global dimension at most two if, and only if, every prime ideal of $R$ is of linear type. Similarly, we show that $R$ has global dimension at most three if, and only if, every prime ideal of $R$ is syzygetic. As a consequence, one derives a characterization of these rings using the André-Quillen homology.