On strictly generalized PP rings. (Q1002428)

A ring \(R\) is said to be right principally injective (right P-injective) if every homomorphism \(f\colon aR\to R\), \(a\in R\), may be extended to \(R\). If all principal right (resp. left) ideals are projective, then \(R\) is called a left (resp. right) PP-ring. A ring \(R\) is called a generalized right PP-ring (GPP-ring) if for any \(x\in R\), there exists a positive integer \(n\) (depending on \(x\)) such that \(x^nR\) as right ideal is projective. Finally, a ring \(R\) is called strictly generalized right PP (strictly GPP) if for any nonzero \(x\in R\), there exists a positive integer \(n\) such that \(x^n\neq 0\) and the right ideal \(x^nR\) is projective. If a ring \(R\) is both left and right PP (resp. GPP; resp. strictly GPP) then \(R\) is just called PP (resp. GPP; resp. strictly GPP). An example is given to show that a GPP ring need not be strictly GPP (and so not PP). The question studied, is whether a (right) strictly GPP ring is (right) GPP. The authors are not able to answer the question in full, but prove it in the affirmative in some specialized cases. If \(R\) is a reduced ring, then the concepts of PP, GPP and strictly GPP are shown to coincide. The ring \(R\) is also shown to be PP if and only if it is strictly GPP when \(R\) is an Abelian ring. For a right strictly GPP ring, \(R\) is shown to be Abelian if and only if it is semicommutative if and only if it is reduced. Several properties of strictly GPP rings are proven. For example, centers of strictly GPP rings are PP rings, right strictly GPP rings are right nonsingular and they have no nonzero central nilpotent elements. For a ring \(R\) which has no infinite sets of orthogonal idempotents, \(R\) is shown to be right strictly GPP iff \(R\) is left PP iff \(R\) is right PP iff \(R\) is Baer. Von Neumann regular rings are characterized as those that are right (resp. left) strictly GPP and right (resp. left) C2. In this characterization it is shown that the ``strictly'' may also be dropped and that the ``C2'' may be replaced by ``P-injective''.