Czechoslovak Mathematical Journal, Vol. 67, No. 2, pp. 417-425, 2017
Certain decompositions of matrices over Abelian rings
Nahid Ashrafi, Marjan Sheibani, Huanyin Chen
Received December 14, 2015. First published March 1, 2017.
Abstract: A ring $R$ is (weakly) nil clean provided that every element in $R$ is the sum of a (weak) idempotent and a nilpotent. We characterize nil and weakly nil matrix rings over abelian rings. Let $R$ be abelian, and let $n\in{\Bbb N}$. We prove that $M_n(R)$ is nil clean if and only if $R/J(R)$ is Boolean and $M_n(J(R))$ is nil. Furthermore, we prove that $R$ is weakly nil clean if and only if $R$ is periodic; $R/J(R)$ is ${\Bbb Z}_3$, $B$ or ${\Bbb Z}_3\oplus B$ where $B$ is a Boolean ring, and that $M_n(R)$ is weakly nil clean if and only if $M_n(R)$ is nil clean for all $n\geq2$.