Additive maps on rings behaving like derivations at idempotent-product elements

Abstract

For every ring R with the unit I containing a nontrivial idempotent P , we describe the additive maps δ from R into itself which behave like derivations, and show that derivations on such kinds of rings can be determined by the action on the elements A , B ∈ R with A B = 0 , A B = P and A B = I respectively. Those results of An and Hou [R. An, J. Hou, Characterizations of derivations on triangular rings: additive maps derivable at idempotents, Linear Algebra Appl. 431 (2009) 1070–1080], Bres˘ar [M. Bres˘ar, Characterizing homomorphisms, multipliers and derivations in rings with idempotents, Proc. Roy. Soc. Edinburgh. Sect. A. 137 (2007) 9–21] and Chebotar et al. [M.A. Chebotar, W.-F. Ke, P.-H. Lee, Maps characterized by action on zero products, Pacific J. Math. 216 (2) 2004 217–228] are improved.