Locally nilpotent skew extensions of rings (Q2173855)

This paper deals with local nilpotence in rings. More specifically, the aim of the paper is to extend some results on locally nilpotent differential polynomial rings to skew extensions of rings. Recall that a skew extension of a ring \(R\) is a ring \(S\supseteq R\) containing a subset \(T\subseteq S\) such that (1) \(S\) is generated as a ring by \(R\cup T\) (2) For any \(t\in T\), there exists a ring automorphism \(\sigma_t\in \mathrm{Aut}(R)\) and a \(\sigma_t\)-derivation \(\delta_t\) such that for all \(r\in R\) one has \(tr=\sigma_t(r)t+\delta_t(r)\). If \(\sigma \in \text{Aut}(R)\), by a \(\sigma\)-derivation we mean an additive map \(\delta:R\longrightarrow R\) satisfying \(\delta(xy)=\delta(x)y+\sigma(x)\delta(y)\), for all \(x,y\in R\). The ring \(S\) is denoted by \(R\langle T;\mathscr{G}, \mathscr{D}\rangle\), where \(\mathscr G=\{\sigma_t\}_{t\in T}\) and \(\mathscr D=\{\delta\}_{t\in T}\) are sequences of automorphisms and \(\sigma\)-derivations corresponding to elements \(t\in T\). By \(S^*\) we denote the set of finite sums of elements of the form \(r\omega\), where \(r\in R\) and \(\omega\) is either a word in a finite set of elements from \(T\) or \(\omega = 1\). It is clear that \(S^*\) is an ideal of \(S\) which equals \(S\) if \(R\) is a ring with \(1\). The natural examples of skew extensions are \(R[x;\sigma, \delta]\) -- the ring of skew polynomials, the crossed product \(R * U(L)\), where \(U(L)\) is the universal enveloping algebra of a Lie algebra \(L\) and the smash product \(R\# H\), where \(H\) is a Hopf algebra which is generated by group-like and skew primitive elements. The main result of the paper is the following Theorem: Let \(R\langle T,\mathscr G,\mathscr D\rangle\) be a skew extension of an algebra \(R\) over a commutative ring \(K\) such that the family \(\mathscr G\) is locally finite. (1) If \(R^n\subseteq \mathscr{W}(R)\) for some \(n>1\), where \(\mathcal{W}(R)\) is the Wedderburn radical of \(R\), then the \(K\)-algebra \(R\langle T,\mathscr G,\mathscr D\rangle^*\) is locally nilpotent. (2) If the prime radical \(P=P(R)\) of \(R\) is strongly invariant under \(\mathscr{D}\), then the ideal \(P\langle T,\mathscr G,\mathscr D\rangle^*\) of \(R\langle T,\mathscr G,\mathscr D\rangle\) is locally nilpotent. In Section 2, the authors consider non-commutative algebras with locally nilpotent derivations having commutative kernels and prove the following result. Theorem: Let \(R\) be a \(K\)-algebra with a surjective locally nilpotent derivation \(d\) such that \(R\) is generated by \(R_1=\ker d^2\). If \(R^d\) is commutative, then the Jacobson radical \(J(R)\) of \(R\) is locally nilpotent.