On some products of commutators in an associative ring

Abstract

Let $A$ be a unital associative ring and let $T^{(k)}$ be the two-sided ideal of $A$ generated by all commutators $[a_1, a_2, \dots , a_k]$ $(a_i \in A)$ where $[a_1, a_2] = a_1 a_2 - a_2 a_1$, $[a_1, \dots , a_{k-1}, a_k] = \bigl[ [a_1, \dots , a_{k-1}], a_k \bigr]$ $(k >2)$. It has been known that, if either $m$ or $n$ is odd then \[ 6 \, [a_1, a_2, \dots , a_m] [b_1, b_2, \dots , b_n] \in T^{(m+n-1)} \] for all $a_i, b_j \in A$. This was proved by Sharma and Srivastava in 1990 and independently rediscovered later (with different proofs) by various authors. The aim of our note is to give a simple proof of the following result: if at least one of the integers $m,n$ is odd then, for all $a_i, b_j \in A$, \[ 3 \, [a_1, a_2, \dots , a_m] [b_1, b_2, \dots , b_n] \in T^{(m+n-1)}. \] Since it has been known that, in general, \[ [a_1, a_2, a_3] [b_1, b_2] \notin T^{(4)}, \] our result cannot be improved further for all $m, n$ such that at least one of them is odd.