Armendariz Properties Relative to a Ring Endomorphism

For an endomorphism α of a ring R, we introduce the notion of an α-Armendariz ring to investigate the relative Armendariz properties. This concept extends the class of Armendariz rings and gives us an opportunity to study Armendariz rings in a general setting. It is obvious that every Armendariz ring is an α-Armendariz ring, but we shall give an example to show that there exists a right α-Armendariz ring which is not Armendariz. A number of properties of this version are established. It is shown that if I is a reduced ideal of a ring R such that R/I is a right α-Armendariz ring, then R is right α-Armendariz. For an endomorphism α of a ring R, we show that R is right α-Armendariz if and only if Rx] is right α-Armendariz. Moreover, a weak form of α-Armendariz rings is considered in the last section. We show that in general weak α-Armendariz rings need not be α-Armendariz.