TORSION PRERADICALS—A TOOL FOR ANALYSING RINGS

Abstract

This paper surveys a selection of results in the literature on torsion preradicals; these are left exact preradical functors on the category of unital right modules over an associative ring with identity. Various well known classes of rings such as semisimple, artinian, perfect and strongly prime are characterized in terms of torsion preradicals. A classification of prime rings using torsion preradicals is also exhibited. Rings all of whose torsion preradicals are radicals and rings whose torsion preradicals commute, are investigated. An application of the latter condition to Jacobson's Conjecture is presented.