Let be a ring with the set of nilpotents
. We prove that the following are equivalent:
(i) is additively closed,
(ii) is multiplicatively closed and
satisfies K\”othe’s conjecture,
(iii) is closed under the operation
,
(iv) is a subring of
.
Some applications and examples of rings with this property are given, with
an emphasis on certain classes of exchange and clean rings.