Invertible and nilpotent matrices over antirings (Q958019)

A semiring \(S\) is called an antiring if it is zerosumfree, i.e. if \(a+ b=0\) implies that \(a= 0\) and \(b= 0\) for any \(a,b\in S\). A semiring \(S\) is commutative if \(ab = ba\) for all \(a, b \in S\). An antiring is called entire if \(ab = 0\) implies that either \(a=0\) or \(b=0\). In this paper, the authors first characterize invertible matrices over an arbitrary commutative antiring \(S\) with 1 and find the structure of \(\text{GL}_n(S)\), which is a generalization of the corresponding result by \textit{Y. Tan} [ibid. 423, No. 2--3, 428--444 (2007; Zbl 1121.15019)]. Using a result by \textit{Y. Tan} [ibid. 429, No. 5--6, 1243--1253 (2008; Zbl 1146.15017)], the authors find the number of nilpotent matrices over an entire commutative finite antiring. They also prove that every nilpotent \( n \times n \) matrix over an entire antiring can be written as a sum of \( \lceil\log_2{n}\rceil\) square-zero matrices and find the necessary number of square-zero summands for an arbitrary trace-zero matrix to be expressible as their sum.