On bilinear maps on matrices with applications to commutativity preservers. (Q855722)

Let \(A\) be a prime ring with \(\text{char}(A)\neq 2\) and \(*\) another multiplication on \(A\). The work on this paper began with the question: If one considers (1) \(x^2*x=x*x^2\) for all \(x\) in \(A\), is it then still possible to characterize \(*\)? The authors fundamental result, Theorem 2.1, treats a condition essentially equivalent to (1), but in a more general context, in terms of bilinear maps from \(M_n\times M_n\) into any \(A\)-module. This condition is characterized in various ways. The importance of the variety of these conditions becomes clear in later sections, especially in Section 4. In Section 3 they apply Theorem 2.1 to the study of products on \(M_n\). In particular, they answer the question (1) and generalize a result by Benkart and Osborn on third power associative Lie-admissible products on matrices. Their main application of Theorem 2.1 is given in Section 4, where commutativity preserving maps is studied.