We provide necessary and sufficient conditions for a skew polynomial ring of derivation type to be semiprimitive when the base ring has no nonzero nil ideals. This extends existing results on the Jacobson radical of skew polynomial rings of derivation type.

We consider finite groups acting on quantum (or skew) polynomial rings. Deformations of the semidirect product of the quantum polynomial ring with the acting group extend symplectic reflection algebras and graded Hecke algebras to the quantum setting over a field of arbitrary characteristic. We give necessary and sufficient conditions for such algebras to satisfy a Poincaré–Birkhoff–Witt property using the theory of noncommutative Gröbner bases. We include applications to the case of abelian groups and the case of groups acting on coordinate rings of quantum planes. In addition, we classify graded automorphisms of the coordinate ring of quantum 3-space. In characteristic zero, Hochschild cohomology gives an elegant description of the Poincaré–Birkhoff–Witt conditions.

Let $R$ be a unit-regular ring and let $\sigma $ be an endomorphism of $R$ such that $\sigma \left( e \right)\,=\,e$ for all ${{e}^{2}}\,=\,e\,\in \,R$ and let $n\,\ge \,0$. It is proved that every element of $R[x;\,\sigma ]/\left( {{x}^{n+1}} \right)$ is equivalent to an element of the form ${{e}_{0}}\,+\,{{e}_{1}}x\,+\,\cdots \,+\,{{e}_{n}}{{x}^{n}}$, where the ${{e}_{i}}$ are orthogonal idempotents of $R$. As an application, it is proved that $R[x;\,\sigma ]/\left( {{x}^{n+1}} \right)$ is left morphic for each $n\,\ge \,0$.