On clean ideals. (Q1415234)

All rings considered are associative with identity. An ideal \(I\) of a ring \(R\) is called: (i) a clean ideal if every element in \(I\) is a sum of an idempotent and a unit of \(R\); (ii) an exchange ideal if for any \(x\in I\) there exists an idempotent \(e\in I\) such that \(e-x\in R(x-x^2)\). The notion of clean ideal is introduced by the authors, they show that every clean ideal \(I\) of a ring is an exchange ideal and that the converse holds provided every idempotent element in \(I\) is central. An ideal \(I\) of a regular ring \(R\) is said to have stable range one if \(aR+bR=R\) with \(a\in 1+I\) and \(b\in R\) implies that \(a+by\) is a unit of \(R\) for a \(y\in R\). It is shown that if \(R\) is a regular ring and \(I\) is an ideal of \(R\) having stable range one, then \(I\) is a clean ideal of \(R\). Also, the authors establish some correspondences between clean ideals of a ring \(R\) and clean ideals of the rings of square matrices or lower triangular square matrices over \(R\).