McCoy property and nilpotent elements of skew generalized power series rings

Abstract

Let [Formula: see text] be a ring, [Formula: see text] a strictly ordered monoid and [Formula: see text] a monoid homomorphism. The skew generalized power series ring [Formula: see text] is a common generalization of (skew) polynomial rings, (skew) power series rings, (skew) Laurent polynomial rings, (skew) group rings, and Mal’cev–Neumann Laurent series rings. In this paper, we consider the problem of determining when [Formula: see text] is nilpotent in [Formula: see text]. We study various annihilator properties and a variety of conditions and related properties that the skew generalized power series [Formula: see text] inherits from [Formula: see text]. We also introduce and study the [Formula: see text]-McCoy condition on [Formula: see text], a generalization of the standard McCoy condition from polynomials to skew generalized power series. We resolve the structure of [Formula: see text]-McCoy rings and obtain various necessary or sufficient conditions for a ring to be [Formula: see text]-McCoy. As particular cases of our general results we obtain several new theorems on the McCoy condition. Moreover various examples of [Formula: see text]-McCoy rings are provided.