On prime ideals and radicals of polynomial rings and graded rings. (Q392422)

All rings in this paper are associative but not necessarily with identity. For a given ring \(A\), the Brown-McCoy radical \(G(A)\) of \(A\) is the intersection of all ideals \(I\) of \(A\) such that the factor ring \(A/I\) is a simple ring with unity and the \(S\)-radical \(S(A)\) of \(A\) is the intersection of all ideals \(I\) of \(A\) such that the factor ring \(A/I\) is in the class \(\mathcal P\) consisting of non-zero prime rings \(R\) such that every nonzero ideal \(I\) of \(R\) contains a non-zero central element of \(R\). Let \(\mathbb Z\) be the ring of all integers. A ring \(R\) is called \(\mathbb Z\)-graded if \(R\) is the direct sum of its additive subgroups \(R_i\) (called homogenous components of \(R\)), where \(i\) runs over integers and \(R_iR_j\subseteq R_{i+j}\) for arbitrary \(i,j\). Elements belonging to \(H(R)=\bigcup_{i\in\mathbb Z}R_i\) are called homogeneous elements of \(R\). A \(\mathbb Z\)-graded ring \(R\) is graded nil if \(H(R)\) consists of nilpotent elements. For the polynomial ring \(A[x]\) in one indeterminate \(x\) over a ring \(A\) and a prime ring \(P\) an epimorphism \(f\colon A[x]\twoheadrightarrow P\) is called proper if \(f(xI[x])\neq 0\) for every non-zero ideal \(I\) of \(A\). In this paper the authors extend some known results on radicals and prime ideals of polynomial rings and Laurent polynomial rings to \(\mathbb Z\)-graded rings. They study some open problems concerning the Brown-McCoy radical and the radical \(S\) of polynomial rings that are related to the famous Koethe's problem which asks whether the Jacobson radical \(J(A[x])\) of \(A[x]\) contains \(\text{Nil}(A)[x]\), where \(\text{Nil}(A)\) denotes the nil radical of \(A\). One of them is Problem 1.5 which asks whether the existence of a proper epimorphism of \(A[x]\) onto a ring \(P\in\mathcal P\) implies that the center \(Z(A)\) of \(A\) is nonzero. The authors observe, for example, that a positive solution of Problem 1.5 gives a positive solution to the open problem put by Ferrero and Wisbauer which asks whether \(S(A[x])=S(A)[x]\) for every ring \(A\). They extend the concept of proper epimorphisms from polynomial rings to \(\mathbb Z\)-graded rings, study a graded counterpart of Problem 1.5 and solve it in the positive in some particular cases. They show that Problem 1.5 is equivalent to its counterpart asked for \(\mathbb Z\)-graded rings. Finally, the authors introduce a \(\mathbb Z\)-graded analog of the radical \(S\) and describe some relationships among this radical, the Brown-McCoy radical and the radical \(S\) of \(\mathbb Z\)-graded rings. They also show that all graded-nil \(\mathbb Z\)-graded rings are Brown-McCoy radical and, in case of a positive characteristic, \(S\)-radical.