Small ideals in radical theory (Q791610)

In a ring with left or right identity an ideal is small if and only if it is contained in the Brown-McCoy radical. A ring is said to be small, if it is contained as a small ideal in some ring. The class of small rings coincides with that of all Brown-McCoy radical rings. Let \({\mathcal R}\) be a radical class and \({\mathcal S}\) its semisimple class. The following two conditions are examined: (*) if I is a small ideal in \(S\in {\mathcal S}\), then S/\(I\in {\mathcal S}\), (**) if I is a small ideal in A and A/\(I\in {\mathcal R}\), then \(A\in {\mathcal R}\). It is proved that (*) implies (**), but not conversely. The upper radical of a homomorphically closed regular class satisfies (**). If the semisimple class of a hereditary radical \({\mathcal R}\neq 0\) satisfies (*), then \({\mathcal R}\) is supernilpotent. If a hereditary supernilpotent radical class is contained in the Jacobson radical class, or if a supernilpotent radical class contains the Brown- McCoy radical class, then its semisimple class satisfies (*).