Nil-Armendariz rings relative to a monoid. (Q5917903)

The notion of an Armendariz ring has been generalized in many different ways. Here another generalization is presented. For a monoid \(M\), \(R[M]\) is the monoid ring over \(R\) and \(\text{nil}(R)\) is the set of nilpotent elements of \(R\). A ring \(R\) is called `nil-Armendariz relative to \(M\)' if whenever \(\alpha=\sum_{i=1}^na_ig_i,\beta=\sum_{j=1}^mb_jh_j\in R[M]\) satisfy \(\alpha\beta\in\text{nil}(R)[M]\), then \(a_ib_j\in\text{nil}(R)\) for all \(i\) and \(j\). At first it is shown that imposing additional structure on \(M\) and/or \(R\) forces \(R\) to be nil-Armendariz relative to \(M\). For example, this will be the case when \(M\) is a unique-product monoid and \(\text{nil}(R)\) is an ideal of \(R\). The connections between nil-Armendariz rings relative to \(M\) and related rings are investigated as well as some properties of these rings. When \(R\) is nil-Armendariz relative to a monoid \(M\), then it is shown that \(\text{nil}(R)[M]\subseteq\text{nil}(R[M])\). The equality holds when \(R\) is semicommutative and this requirement for the equality is in general not superfluous.