When is a Sum of Annihilator Ideals an Annihilator Ideal?

Abstract

We call a ring R a right SA-ring if for any ideals I and J of R there is an ideal K of R such that r(I) + r(J) = r(K). This class of rings is exactly the class of rings for which the lattice of right annihilator ideals is a sublattice of the lattice of ideals. The class of right SA-rings includes all quasi-Baer (hence all Baer) rings and all right IN-rings (hence all right selfinjective rings). This class is closed under direct products, full and upper triangular matrix rings, certain polynomial rings, and two-sided rings of quotients. The right SA-ring property is a Morita invariant. For a semiprime ring R, it is shown that R is a right SA-ring if and only if R is a quasi-Baer ring if and only if r(I) + r(J) = r(I ∩ J) for all ideals I and J of R if and only if Spec(R) is extremally disconnected. Examples are provided to illustrate and delimit our results.