On clean, weakly clean, and feebly clean commutative group rings

TL;DR

This paper explores conditions under which group rings over localized rings of integers in algebraic number fields are weakly clean or feebly clean, extending previous results from simpler rings to more general algebraic settings.

Contribution

It provides explicit characterizations for when group rings over localizations of algebraic number fields are weakly clean or feebly clean, covering cyclotomic and quadratic fields.

Findings

Characterization for group rings over cyclotomic fields

Criteria for quadratic fields

Extension of previous results to more general rings

Abstract

A ring $R$ is said to be clean if each element of $R$ can be written as the sum of a unit and an idempotent. $R$ is said to be weakly clean if each element of $R$ is either a sum or a difference of a unit and an idempotent, and $R$ is said to be feebly clean if every element $r$ can be written as $r=u+e_1-e_2$, where $u$ is a unit and $e_1,e_2$ are orthogonal idempotents. Clearly clean rings are weakly clean rings and both of them are feebly clean. In a recent article (J. Algebra Appl. 17 (2018), 1850111(5 pages)), McGoven characterized when the group ring $\mathbb Z_{(p)}[C_q]$ is weakly clean and feebly clean, where $p, q$ are distinct primes. In this paper, we consider a more general setting. Let $K$ be an algebraic number field, $\mathcal O_K$ its ring of integers, $\mathfrak p\subset \mathcal O$ a nonzero prime ideal, and $\mathcal O_{\mathfrak p}$ the localization of $\mathcal O$ at $\mathfrak p$. We investigate when the group ring $\mathcal O_{\mathfrak p}[G]$ is weakly clean and feebly clean, where $G$ is a finite abelian group, and establish an explicit characterization for such a group ring to be weakly clean and feebly clean for the case when $K=\mathbb Q(\zeta_n)$ is a cyclotomic field or $K=\mathbb Q(\sqrt{d})$ is a quadratic field.