A topological approach to Morita equivalence for rings with local units (Q1201193)

A ring \(R\) is said to have local units if every finite subset of it is contained in a subring with identity. If \(R\) is a ring with local units, then the family \(\{R\cdot(1-e)\mid e\in R,\;e^ 2=e\}\) defines a ring topology \(\tau\) on \(R\). A ring \(R\) with local units is called topologically projective if the module \((_ RR,\tau)\) is a topological direct summand of a direct sum of discrete modules \(Re\), where \(e\) is an idempotent from \(R\). The main result of the paper states: Let \(R\) and \(S\) be topologically projective rings with local units. Then \(R\) and \(S\) are Morita equivalent if and only if there exists a set \(I\) for which the rings \(R_ I\) and \(S_ I\) are isomorphic, where \(R_ I\) and \(S_ I\) are the rings of \(I\times I\) matrices over \(R\) and \(S\) respectively which contain at most finitely many nonzero entries.