Published online by Cambridge University Press: 20 January 2009
A ring R is said to satisfy the right Ore condition with respect to a subset C of R if, given a ∈ R and e ∈ C, there exist b ∈ R and D ∈ C such that ad = cb. It is well known that R has a classical right quotient ring if and only if R satisfies the right Ore condition with respect to C when C is the set of regular elements of R (a regular elemept of R being an element of R which is not a zero-divisor). It is also well known that not every ring has a classical right quotient ring. If we make the non-trivial assumption that R has a classical right quotient ring, it is natural to ask whether this property also holds in certain rings related to R such as the ring Mn(R) of all n by n matrices over R. Some answers to this question are known when extra assumptions are made. For example, it was shown by L. W. Small in (5) that if R has a classical right quotient ring Q which is right Artinian then Mn(Q) is the right quotient ring of Mn(R) and eQe is the right quotient ring of eRe where e is an idempotent element of R. Also it was shown by C. R. Hajarnavis in (3) that if R is a Noetherian ring all of whose ideals satisfy the Artin-Rees property then R has a quotient ring Q and Mn(Q) is the quotient ring of Mn(R).