Commutative Rings Whose Elements Are a Sum of a Unit and Idempotent

ABSTRACT As defined by Nicholson a (noncommutative) ring is a clean ring if every element of is a sum of a unit and an idempotent. Let be a commutative ring with identity. We define to be a uniquely clean ring if every element of can be written uniquely as the sum of a unit and an idempotent. Examples of clean rings (uniquely clean rings) include von Neumann regular rings (Boolean rings) and quasilocal rings (with residue field ). A ring is a clean ring or uniquely clean ring if and only if is. So every zero-dimensional ring is a clean ring, but a zero-dimensional ring is a uniquely clean ring if and only if is a Boolean ring.