Traces of permuting \(n\)-additive maps and permuting \(n\)-derivations of rings. (Q2454099)

Let \(n\geq 2\) be a fixed positive integer. A map \(\Delta\colon R^n\to R\) is said to be permuting if \[ \Delta(x_1,x_2,\ldots,x_n)=\Delta(x_{\pi(1)},x_{\pi(2)},\ldots,x_{\pi(n)}) \] for all \(\pi\in S_n\); and \(\Delta\colon R^n\to R\) is called an \(n\)-derivation if it is \(n\)-additive and \[ \Delta(x_1,x_2,\ldots,x_iy_i,\ldots,x_n)=x_i\Delta(x_1,x_2,\ldots,y_i,\ldots,x_n)+\Delta(x_1,\ldots,x_i,\ldots,x_n)y_i \] for all \(x_i,y_i\in R\). The trace of \(\Delta\) is the map \(\delta\colon R\to R\) defined by \(\delta(x)=\Delta(x,x,\ldots,x)\). The authors present several theorems asserting commutativity of rings satisfying certain conditions involving traces of one or more \(n\)-additive permuting maps or permuting \(n\)-derivations. For example, they show that if \(R\) is an \(n!\)-torsion-free semiprime ring and \(\Delta\) is a permuting \(n\)-additive map with trace \(\delta\) such that \(xy+yx=\delta(y)-\delta(x)\) for all \(x,y\in R\), then \(R\) is commutative. This work is motivated by earlier results of various authors on symmetric bi-derivations, which are just permuting 2-derivations.