Bicommutants and Arens regularity

Abstract

Let $C$ and $R$ be unital rings and $Z$ an injective cogenerator for right $C$-modules. For an $R,C$-bimodule $U$ let $U^*=Hom_C(U,Z)$, $S=End_R(U)$ and $Biend_R(U)=End_S(U)$, the biendomorphism ring of $U$. Under suitable requirements on $U$ we show that $B:=Biend_R(U)$ can be identified with a subring of $\tilde{B}:=Biend_R(U^*)$,study conditions for the reverse inclusion and density of $B$ in $\tilde{B}$. In the case $C$ is contained in the center of $R$ we describe $Biend_R(R^*)$ in terms of the Arens products on $R^{**}$ and study Arens regularity of $R$ in the context of duality of modules. We characterize Arens regular algebras over fields.