Projective planes. I. (Q966172)

A semi-additive ring is a triple \((X,+,T)\) such that \((X,+)\) is a loop with identity \(0\), and \(T\) is a ternary operation on \(X\) with \(T(x,0,b)=T(0,x,b)=b\) for all \(x,b\in X\). The well-known planar ternary rings used to coordinatize projective planes are examples, where \(+\) is derived from \(T\). Free semi-additive rings are studied in some detail. An ideal is a normal subloop of \((X,+)\) such that the quotient becomes a semi-additive ring by suitable definition of \(T\). In a final section central ideals are studied. This is used to prove a factorization theorem for homomorphisms, which in turn implies that a large class of semi-additive rings (including planar ternary rings) can be obtained from polynomial rings over the integers.