Clean general rings. (Q2569439)

By a ring the authors mean an associative ring with identity and by a general ring they mean an associative ring with or without identity. A ring is called clean (uniquely clean) if every element is (uniquely) the sum of an idempotent and a unit. This definition is extended in the paper to general rings as follows. For a general ring \(I\) and \(p,q\in I\), if one denotes \(p*q=p+q+pq\), then \((I,*)\) is a monoid with unity \(0\). Denote \(Q(I)=\{q\in I\mid p*q=0=q*p\) for some \(p\in I\}\). Then \(I\) will be called a general (uniquely) clean ring if every element of \(I\) is (uniquely) the sum of an idempotent and an element from \(Q(I)\). The authors extend many of the basic results of (uniquely) clean rings to general (uniquely) clean rings. They introduce and study for general rings an intermediate notion between uniquely clean rings and clean rings, namely semiboolean rings, also seen as a natural generalization of Boolean rings. Thus, a general ring \(I\) is said to be semiboolean if it satisfies the following equivalent conditions: (i) every element of \(I\) is the sum of an idempotent and an element from the Jacobson radical \(J(I)\) of \(I\); (ii) \(I\) is clean and \(Q(I)=J(I)\); (iii) \(I/J(I)\) is Boolean and idempotents lift modulo \(J(I)\).