On commutative von Neumann regular rings and a question of Handelman (Q1892305)

This paper is concerned with the problem of whether a self-injective (von Neumann) regular ring \(R\) can be recovered from the base space and stalks of its Pierce sheaf. Recall from [\textit{R. S. Pierce}, Mem. Am. Math. Soc. 70 (1967; Zbl 0152.026)] that the Pierce sheaf of \(R\) is based on the space \(\text{spec }B(R)\) of maximal ideals in the Boolean algebra \(B(R)\) of central idempotents of \(R\), and that the stalk at a point \(x\) is the factor ring \(R/Rx\). A natural question is whether \(R\) is determined up to isomorphism by \(\text{spec }B(R)\) and the rings \(R/Rx\). It is known that each \(x\) is contained in a unique maximal ideal \(I_x\) of \(R\). D. E. Handelman raised the question, for directly finite right self-injective regular rings, whether \(R\) is determined up to isomorphism by \(\text{spec }B(R)\) and the rings \(R/I_x\) (Open Problem 22 in the reviewer's book [Von Neumann regular rings, Pitman, London (1979; Zbl 0411.16007)]). The authors construct examples that simultaneously answer both of the above questions in the negative. Namely, there exist commutative self-injective regular rings \(Q_1\) and \(Q_2\) such that \(B(Q_1)\cong B(Q_2)\) and all the stalks of both \(Q_1\) and \(Q_2\) are isomorphic to a common field \(E\), yet \(Q_1\not\cong Q_2\).