Adjoint group of a radical ring

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Definition

Suppose N is an radical ring, i.e., an associative ring where, for every x∈N, there exists y∈N such that x+y+xy=0. First, make N a semigroup with the operation x*y:=x+y+xy (this is the multiplicative formal group law, but unlike other formal group laws, it works even without commutativity assumptions). The adjoint group of N is the subgroup of this semigroup comprising the elements with two-sided inverses. The identity element for the adjoint group is 0∈N.

1 plus notation

For convenience, and to avoid confusing the elements of N with the same elements viewed as elements of the adjoint group, we denote the adjoint group element for x∈N as the formal expression 1+x. The advantage of this is that the group multiplication now arises formally from the multiplication in N and distributivity, i.e.:

(1+x)(1+y)=1+x+y+xy=1+(x*y)

Interpretation inside unitization

The adjoint group can be thought of concretely as the coset 1+N for N of 1 in the unitization N+Z. Alternatively, if N is an algebra over a commutative unital ring R, the adjoint group can be thought of as the coset 1+N for N of 1 in the unitization 1+N.