Countably compact rings with periodic groups of units (Q5933717)

The main results of the paper are the following. Theorem 1. Let \(R\) be a linearly compact ring with \(1\). Then the following conditions are equivalent: (i) \(U(R)\) is periodic; (ii) \(R\) is periodic; (iii) \(R\) is locally finite; (iv) \(R\) has finite characterisic, \(J(R)\) is nil and \(R/J(R)\underset{\text{top}}\cong\prod^n_{i=1}R_i\), where every ring \(R_i\) is a matrix ring over a finite field or over an algebraic extension of a finite field. Theorem 2. Let \(R\) be a compact ring with \(1\). Then the following conditions are equivalent: (i) \(U(R)\) is periodic; (ii) \(R\) is locally finite; (iii) \(R\) has finite characterisic, \(J(R)\) is nil and \(R/J(R)\underset{\text{top}}\cong\prod^n_{i=1}R_i\), where every ring \(R_i\) is a matrix ring over a finite field. Theorem 3. Let \(R\) be a countably compact ring with \(1\). Then the following conditions are equivalent: (i) \(U(R)\) is periodic; (ii) \(R\) has finite characterisic, and there exist two natural numbers \(k\) and \(n\), with \(n<k\), such that \(x^k=x^n\), for every \(x\in R\); (iii) \(R\) is locally finite.