Let A be an F-central simple algebra of degree $m^2=\prod _{i=1}^k p_i^{2\alpha _i}$ and G be a subgroup of the unit group of A such that $F[G]=A$. We prove that if G is a central product of two of its subgroups M and N, then $F[M]\otimes _F F[N]\cong F[G]$. Also, if G is locally nilpotent, then G is a central product of subgroups $H_i$, where $[F[H_i]:F]=p_i^{2\alpha _i}$, $A=F[G]\cong F[H_1]\otimes _F \cdots \otimes _F F[H_k]$ and $H_i/Z(G)$ is the Sylow $p_i$-subgroup of $G/Z(G)$ for each i with $1\leq i\leq k$. Additionally, there is an element of order $p_i$ in F for each i with $1\leq i\leq k$.

Let D be a division ring and N be a subnormal subgroup of the multiplicative group $D^*$. We show that if N contains a nonabelian solvable subgroup, then N contains a nonabelian free subgroup.

We study the discrete dynamics of standard (or left) polynomials $f(x)$ over division rings D. We define their fixed points to be the points $\lambda \in D$ for which $f^{\circ n}(\lambda )=\lambda $ for any $n \in \mathbb {N}$ , where $f^{\circ n}(x)$ is defined recursively by $f^{\circ n}(x)=f(f^{\circ (n-1)}(x))$ and $f^{\circ 1}(x)=f(x)$ . Periodic points are similarly defined. We prove that $\lambda $ is a fixed point of $f(x)$ if and only if $f(\lambda )=\lambda $ , which enables the use of known results from the theory of polynomial equations, to conclude that any polynomial of degree $m \geq 2$ has at most m conjugacy classes of fixed points. We also show that in general, periodic points do not behave as in the commutative case. We provide a sufficient condition for periodic points to behave as expected.

We apply the filtered and graded methods developed in earlier works to find (noncommutative) free group algebras in division rings.

If $L$ is a Lie algebra, we denote by $U(L)$ its universal enveloping algebra. P. M. Cohn constructed a division ring $\mathfrak{D}_{L}$ that contains $U(L)$. We denote by $\mathfrak{D}(L)$ the division subring of $\mathfrak{D}_{L}$ generated by $U(L)$.

Let $k$ be a field of characteristic zero, and let $L$ be a nonabelian Lie $k$-algebra. If either $L$ is residually nilpotent or $U(L)$ is an Ore domain, we show that $\mathfrak{D}(L)$ contains (noncommutative) free group algebras. In those same cases, if $L$ is equipped with an involution, we are able to prove that the free group algebra in $\mathfrak{D}(L)$ can be chosen generated by symmetric elements in most cases.

Let $G$ be a nonabelian residually torsion-free nilpotent group, and let $k(G)$ be the division subring of the Malcev–Neumann series ring generated by the group algebra $k[G]$. If $G$ is equipped with an involution, we show that $k(G)$ contains a (noncommutative) free group algebra generated by symmetric elements.

It is shown that a stable division ring with positive characteristic has finite dimension over its centre. This is then extended to simple division rings.

Let $D$ be a division ring whose group of units satisfies a non-trivial group identity $w$. Let $\alpha$ be the sum of positive degrees of indeterminates occurring in $w$. If the centre of $D$ contains more than $3\alpha$ elements, then $D$ is commutative.

AMS 2000 Mathematics subject classification: Primary 16R50. Secondary 16K20