Invariant additive subgroups in prime rings (Q909005)

This paper is concerned with additive subgroups of a prime ring R invariant under particular sets of automorphisms of R. In order to have a good supply of automorphisms and to avoid certain counterexamples, it is assumed that R has zero-divisors and hence non-zero nilpotent elements. The aim is to come as close as possible, given the existence of known counterexamples, to proving various related conjectures, principally that of \textit{I. N. Herstein} [Duke Math. J. 22, 471-476 (1955; Zbl 0065.023)], that the only non-central subring of a simple ring invariant under all automorphisms is the ring itself. The results obtained, which are too technical to state here, generalise several results in the literature. The paper includes a full discussion of the historical background of the problems considered.