When does a supernilpotent radical essentially split off? (Q1891695)

Let \(R\) denote an associative ring and \(\rho\) denote a supernilpotent radical property (i.e. a hereditary radical which contains the prime radical). In 1970, J. W. Fisher defined an ideal \(L\) of \(R\) to be essentially nilpotent if it contains a nilpotent ideal \(N\) of \(R\) which is essential in \(L\) (i.e. \(N\) has nonzero intersection with each nonzero ideal of \(R\) which is contained in \(L\)). He showed that the prime radical of an arbitrary ring is essentially nilpotent. In 1992, E. Eslami and P. Stewart generalized Fisher's work by showing that each ring contains a unique largest essentially nilpotent ideal, \(EN(R)\). In this paper, the author extends the concept of essential nilpotency to a theory of essential supernilpotency. He defines an ideal \(\overline{\rho}(R)\) which is a closed essential extension of \(\rho(R)\). The ideal \(\overline{\rho}(R)\) generalizes the ideal \(EN(R)\) defined by Eslami and Stewart. Basic properties of \(\overline{\rho}(R)\) are developed. He then applies the theory to several large classes of rings including Baer rings, CS rings, continuous rings, FPF rings, and perfect rings. These applications yield various decompositions of the above rings in terms of a ``nice'' \(\rho\)-semisimple direct summand and \(\overline{\rho}(R)\).