Structure of a Certain Class of Rings with Involution

Abstract

Let R be a ring with involution *, and let Z denote the center of R. In R let S = {x ∈ R|x* = x} be the set of symmetric elements of R. We shall study rings which are conditioned in the following way: given s ∈ S, then for some integer and some polynomial p(t), with integer coefficients which depend on . What can one hope to say about such rings? Certainly all rings in which every symmetric element is nilpotent fall into this class.