Ring elements as sums of units. (Q1040217)

The main results of the paper under review are the following: Theorem 1.1. Let \(R\) be an Artinian ring. Then every element of \(R\) can be expressed as the sum of two units if and only if \(R/J(R)\) does not contain a summand isomorphic to \(\text{GF}(2)\). For a ring \(R\) let \(\Gamma(R)\) be the graph defined on the elements of \(R\) with an edge between vertices \(r\) and \(s\) if and only if \(r-s\) is invertible. The graph \(\Gamma(R)\) is actually the Cayley graph \(\text{Cay}(R,U(R))\) of the Abelian group \((R,+)\) with respect to the set \(U(R)\) of invertible elements of \(R\). Theorem 1.2. Let \(R\) be an Artinian ring with the property that \(R/J(R)\) has \(k\) summands isomorphic to \(\text{GF}(2)\) for some positive integer \(k\). (1) Then \(\Gamma(R)\) contains \(2^{k-1}\) connected components each of which is a bipartite graph. (2) There exist mutually orthogonal idempotents \(e_1,\dots,e_k\) in \(R\) such that for every element \(r\) in \(R\) there exist \(\varepsilon_1,\dots,\varepsilon_k\in\{0,1\}\) and units \(u\) and \(v\) in \(R\) so that \(r=\varepsilon_1e_1+\cdots+\varepsilon_ke_k+u+v\). Theorems 1.1 and 1.2 enable the authors to give a complete ring theoretic description of those finite rings \(R\) for which \(\Gamma(R)\) is Hamiltonian. Corollary 1.1. Let \(R\) be a finite ring with at least three elements. Then the graph \(\Gamma(R)\) contains a Hamiltonian cycle if and only if \(R/J(R)\) contains at most one summand isomorphic to \(\text{GF}(2)\). The authors end the paper by proving the following probabilistic result. Corollary 1.2. Let \(R\) be a finite ring. Then either \(P_X=0\) for some non-empty subset \(X\) of \(R\), or \(1/(3|R|)<P_X\) for every non-empty proper subset \(X\) of \(R\); where for a non-empty proper subset \(X\) of a finite ring \(R\), \(P_X\) is the probability that \(r-s\) is a unit where \(r\) is chosen uniformly at random from \(X\) and \(s\) is chosen uniformly at random from \(R\setminus X\).