Certain decompositions of matrices over Abelian rings

A ring R is (weakly) nil clean provided that every element in R is the sum of a (weak) idempotent and a nilpotent. We characterize nil and weakly nil matrix rings over abelian rings. Let R be abelian, and let n ∈ ?. We prove that M ⁿ (R) is nil clean if and only if R/J(R) is Boolean and M _n (J(R)) is nil. Furthermore, we prove that R is weakly nil clean if and only if R is periodic; R/J(R) is ?₃, B or ?₃ ⊕ B where B is a Boolean ring, and that M _n (R) is weakly nil clean if and only if M _n (R) is nil clean for all n ≥ 2.