Extending Sets of Idempotents to Ring Extensions

Abstract

In this paper the idea of an intrinsic extension of a ring, first proposed by Faith and Utumi, is generalized and studied in its own right. For these types of ring extensions, it is shown that, with relatively mild conditions on the base ring, R, a complete set of primitive idempotents (a complete set of left triangulating idempotents, a complete set of centrally primitive idempotents) can be constructed for an intrinsic extension, T, from a corresponding set in the base ring R. Examples and applications are given for rings that occur in functional analysis and group ring theory.