Reverse decomposition of unipotents over noncommutative rings I: General linear groups

Abstract

Recently is has been proved that if $\sigma\in GL_n(R)$ where $R$ is an commutative ring and $n\geq 3$, then each of the elementary transvections $t_{kl}(\sigma_{ij})~(i\neq j,k\neq l)$ is a product of eight $E_n(R)$-conjugates of $\sigma$ and $\sigma^{-1}$. In this article we show that similar results hold true if $R$ is a (noncommutative) von Neumann regular ring, or a Banach algebra, or a ring satisfying a stable range condition, or a ring with Euclidean algorithm, or an almost commutative ring.