\(*\)-clean rings; some clean and almost clean Baer \(*\)-rings and von Neumann algebras. (Q627971)

The author extends the notions of clean and almost clean rings to rings with involution as follows: a \(*\)-ring \(R\) is \(*\)-clean (resp. almost \(*\)-clean) if every element in \(R\) is the sum of a unit (resp. regular element) and a projection. Various conditions implying that a Baer \(*\)-ring is (almost) \(*\)-clean are studied. Applications to von Neumann algebras are discussed. Say, one of the byproducts of the main results is that all finite type I von Neumann algebras are almost \(*\)-clean.