Near-rings and groups of affine mappings. (Q2862648)

This paper studies partial right ``paradual'' near-rings which generalize the dual numbers (quadratic extensions) of division rings and puts them into a close relationship with group theory and geometry. More precisely, a partial near-ring \(R\) with identity is paradual if the non-units form an ideal \(I\) such that the multiplicative group of \(R/I\) acts sharply transitive on the non-zero elements of \(I\). For precisely these paradual near-rings, the affine mappings \(g\) with \(g(x)=xu+b\), where \(u\) is a unit, are shown to form a so-called ``\((2,2)\)-transformation group''. Locally compact and algebraic \((2,2)\)-transformation groups were already classified before, and this classification is used to completely classify all semi-topological locally compact and semi-algebraic paradual near-rings. The exact results are too technical and involved to be given here.