Fibers of an Element

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Prepping myself for a graduate abstract course and we are using Dummit and Foote's Text. We are starting on Chapter 1, so I thought it would be a good idea to go over chapter 0. There is a term that I just want clarification on, since it did not come up in my previous modern algebra class or any other text I've seen.

Suppose we have sets $A$ and $B$, and we define a function on elements of $a$ $$f:A\rightarrow B$$ $$f(a)=b$$

Then $f(A)\subseteq B$ is called the image of $A$ under $f$. Likewise, if $C\subseteq B$, then $f^{-1}(C)\subseteq A$ is called the preimage of $C$ under $f$.

Then since inverse relations are not necessarily functions, an element of $b\in B$ may have many preimages and these are called fibers. So, as an example, let $A=\mathbb{Z}$ and $B=\mathbb{Z_5}$ and define $f:A\rightarrow B$ such that $f(k)=\bar{k}$, where $k\in\mathbb{Z}$ and $\bar{k}$ is the equivalence class of remainders when dividing elements by $5$. So the fibers of, say $\bar{2}$ are $...-3,2,7,12,... $

It seems to make sense just by definition alone, but I just want to ensure I'm on the right track, as, again, I have never seen this term used before.

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A fiber of a function $f:A \to B $ is $\{ c \in A : f(c)=f(a) \}$ for any $a \in A$. In your example the SET $ \{... -3,2,7,12,... \}$ is a fiber.

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It is possible to prove that when you have a equivalence relation defined between two elements in a set, you can represent the set as a union of mutually disjoint equivalence classes of elements (i.e. sets consist of all elements which satisfying the equivalence relation with one another.)

It's easy to verify that the relation "having the same function value" for a given function is an equivalence relation between two elements in the domain of the function. (In set theory it may be called as the kernel of the function).

Thus, the term fiber of a function means the equivalence classes made by the kernel of the function. So it is just as user254665 defined, and those fibers are (disjoint) subsets of the domain. If the function is injective, each fiber can only have one element.

p.s. I this this page on wiki may help you to find why the concepts of kernel and fiber are useful.