1. Introduction
Throughout this paper, R denotes a unital ring with involution, i.e., a ring with unity 1, and a mapping  satisfying ,  and , for all . Let , if , ,  and , then x is called a Moore–Penrose inverse of a. If such an element x exists, then it is unique and denoted by . The set of all Moore–Penrose invertible elements will be denoted by .
An element 
 is said to be 
Drazin invertible if there exists 
 such that 
, 
 and 
 for some integer 
m. The element 
b above is unique if it exists and denoted by 
. The smallest positive integer 
m is called the Drazin index of 
a, denoted by 
. The set of all Drazin invertible elements in 
R will denoted by 
. The DMP-inverse for a complex matrix was introduced by Malik and Thome [
1]. Let 
 with 
, where 
 denotes the set of all 
 matrices over the field of complex numbers. A matrix 
 is called a 
DMP-inverse of 
A if it satisfies 
 and 
 It is unique (and denoted by 
). Malik and Thome gave several characterizations of the core inverse by using the decomposition of Hartwig and Spindelböck [
2].
The notion of the core-EP inverse for a complex matrix was introduced by Manjunatha Prasad and Mohana [
3]. A matrix 
 is a 
core-EP inverse of 
 if 
X is an outer inverse of 
A satisfying 
, where 
m is the index of 
A and 
 stands for the range (column space) of 
. It is unique and denoted by 
. The core-EP inverse for a complex matrix can be investigated by the Core-EP decomposition of a complex matrix by Wang  [
4]. The notion of the core-EP inverse is extended from the complex matrix to an element in a ring with involution. We will also use the following notations: 
, 
, 
 and 
. Let 
 with ind
. An element 
 is called the core-EP inverse of 
a if it is an outer inverse of 
a and 
b is a *-EP element satisfies 
The notion of the core inverse for a complex matrix was introduced by Baksalary and Trenkler [
5]. In [
6], Rakić et al. generalized the core inverse of a complex matrix to the case of an element in 
R. More precisely, let 
, if 
, 
 and 
, then 
x is called a 
core inverse of 
a. The core inverse can be investigated by three equations by Xu, Chen and Zhang [
7]. If such an element 
x exists, then it is unique and denoted by 
. The set of all core invertible elements in 
R will be denoted by 
.
In addition,  and  will denote the  column vectors all of whose components are 1 and 0, respectively. The zero matrix of size  is denoted by  (abbr. 0). If  is a subspace of , then  stands for the orthogonal projector onto the subspace . A matrix  is unitary if  where  denotes the identity matrix of size  Let , a is called idempotent if . The symbol  denotes the set of all positive integers.
  3. -Core Inverse
Let us start this section by introducing the notation of the -core inverse.
Definition 2.  Let  and . If  and  is idempotent, then  is called a-core inverse 
of a, if it satisfies  It will be proved that if x exists, then it is unique and denoted by .
Remark 1.  If  is -core invertible, then we have  and  is idempotent. Since this property of the -core inverse is used many times in the sequel, thus we emphasize it here.
 Theorem 2.  If equations in (
2) 
have a solution, then it is unique.  Proof.  Let 
 and 
 be two candidates 
-core inverse of 
a, that is 
, 
, 
 and 
. Thus by 
 and 
 is idempotent, we have
        
□
 In the following lemma, we will show that  if a is -core invertible.
Lemma 1.  Let  and . If a is -core invertible, then
 - (1)
- ; 
- (2)
- ; 
- (3)
- , where . 
Proof.   and 
. If 
a is 
-core invertible, then we have 
 and 
. Having in mind that 
 and the idempotency of 
, we obtain
        
Thus, by (
3) and (
4), we have
        
. If , then  by the definition of the -core inverse and .    □
 Theorem 3.  If the solution of the equations in (
2) 
exists, then the unique solution is .  Proof.  By Lemma 1, we have 
. Having in mind that 
 and the idempotency of 
, we obtain
        
□
 Remark 2.  If  and , then the -core inverse is the generalizations of the -core inverse and the -core inverse [
11]
, respectively. More precisely, we have the following statements:  - (1)
- If  and , then the -core inverse coincides with the -core inverse; 
- (2)
- If  and , then the -core inverse coincides with the -core inverse. 
By Remarks 3.5, 4.7 and 4.8 in [
11], we have the 
-core inverse for a complex matrix, which extends the notions of the core inverse defined by Baksalary and Trenkler [
5] and the core-EP inverse defined by Manjunatha Prasad and Mohana [
3], respectively. The 
-core inverse for a complex matrix, which extends the notions of the core inverse and the 
-inverse defined by Malik and Thome [
1], respectively. Therefore, we have the following remark by Remark 2. We can use generalized inverses to study the system of constrained matrix equations and Toeplitz matrix, etc. [
12,
13].
Remark 3.  If  and , then the -core inverse is a generalization of the core inverse, the DMP inverse and the core-EP inverse. More precisely, we have the following statements:
 - (1)
- If ,  and , then the -core inverse coincides with the core inverse; 
- (2)
- If ,  and , then the -core inverse coincides with the DMP inverse; 
- (3)
- If , ,  and , then the -core inverse coincides with the core-EP inverse. 
Example 1.  The -core inverse is different from the group inverse and the Moore–Penrose inverse. Let . Then  by , but A is not Moore–Penrose invertible by . Note that if A is Moore–Penrose invertible, then , but . In fact,  implies A is not -invertible. If we let , , then .
 Theorem 4.  Let  and . If  and  is idempotent, then the following are equivalent:
 - (1)
- a is -core invertible with ; 
- (2)
-  and ; 
- (3)
- ,  and . 
Proof.   and  are trivial by Lemma 1 and the definition of the -core inverse.
. From  we have that x is the -core inverse of a.
. It is sufficient to prove . We have .    □
 Remark 4.  Note that  iff  iff . Moreover,  iff  iff . Thus, we can obtain more conditions such that a is -core invertible in Theorem 4.
 If ,  and , then the -core inverse coincides with the core inverse, thus we have the following corollary by Theorem 4.
Corollary 1.  Let  with . Then the following are equivalent:
 - (1)
- a is core invertible with ; 
- (2)
-  and ; 
- (3)
-  and . 
Since the -core inverse is a generalization of the core inverse, the core-EP inverse, the DMP-inverse, -core inverse and -core inverse, we can obtain some analogous corollaries as Corollary 1.
Recall that for 
, we can represent any 
 as a matrix
      
      where 
, 
, 
 and 
.
Now we present the result concerning the matrix form of -core invertible element .
Theorem 5.  Let  and . Then a is -core invertible if and only if there exists  such that ,where , ,  is -core invertible and -core invertible. The -core inverse of a is given by  Proof.  Suppose that 
a is 
-core invertible and let 
. Then 
, 
 and 
. Hence,
        
        where 
 and 
. Similarly, we obtain, for 
 and 
,
        
The equalities 
 and 
 give 
 and 
. Set
        
From 
, we obtain 
, 
 and 
. Since 
, then 
. Now, by
        
        we conclude that 
 and 
. Hence, 
 is 
-core invertible and 
-core invertible with 
 and 
.
Conversely, by the assumption 
 and 
, we check that 
. Since 
 is 
-core invertible and 
-core invertible, if we let
        
        we get 
 and 
. So, 
a is 
-core invertible and 
.    □
 Under some conditions, we obtain that the -core inverse of a and the -core inverse of b commute.
Lemma 2.  Let  and . If a is -core invertible, b is -core invertible and (or equivalently , then .
 Proof.  Because  and  by Theorem 3, we get .    □
 Now, we study when the product of one -core invertible element and one -core invertible element is -core invertible.
Theorem 6.  Let  and  such that a is -core invertible, b is -core invertible,  and . We have the following statements:
 - (1)
- If (or equivalently , then  is -core invertible and ; 
- (2)
- If , then  is -core invertible and . 
Proof.  Since  and  are idempotents and , notice that  and . The assumptions  and  imply .
(1). Since ,  and , we have . Therefore,  is -core invertible and .
(2). From  we can get that  by Lemma 2. By , we deduce that .    □
 In the case that , the sum of -core invertible element a and -core invertible element b is -core invertible.
Theorem 7.  Let  and  such that a is -core invertible, b is -core invertible and . Then  is -core invertible and .
 Proof.  First, observe that 
 and 
. Further,
        
        and 
. Analogously, 
. Thus,
        
        and
        
        that is, 
 is 
-core invertible and 
.    □
 Lemma 3.  Let  and  and a is -core invertible. Then  if and only if .
 Proof.  By Lemma 1, we have . If , then . For the opposite implication, we have .    □
 Proposition 1.  Let  and . If a is -core invertible, then
 - (1)
- If , then  is an inner inverse of  and q is idempotent; 
- (2)
- If (or equivalently , then ; 
- (3)
- If q is idempotent, then  is an outer inverse of ; 
- (4)
- If , then ; 
- (5)
- If  and , then . 
Proof.  (1). Since  and , we have that  and .
(2). It is easy to check that  by  and . Thus, we have  by Lemma 3.
(3). The condition  gives 
(4). By definition of the -core inverse.
(5). It follows from (2) and (4).    □
 Applying Proposition 1, we obtain the next result.
Corollary 2.  Let  and . If a is -core invertible, then
 - (1)
- If  and , then  and ; 
- (2)
- If ,  and , then  and  (that is,  is EP). 
  4. -Core Inverse
Definition 3.  Let  and . We say that  is a-core inverse 
of a, if it satisfies  It will be proved that if x exists, then it is unique and denoted by .
Theorem 8.  If equations in (
6) 
have a solution, then it is unique and the unique solution is .  Proof.  Let 
x satisfy (
6). Then 
". Observe that this implies the uniqueness of the equations (
6): the unique element in 
R satisfying (
6) is 
.    □
 If 
a is 
-core invertible, then we have 
 and 
 and
      
By Theorem 8, we have ; here, x is the -core inverse of a (see next Theorem 11).
Lemma 4.  Let  and . If a is -core invertible, then .
 Remark 5.  If  and , then the -core inverse is a generalization of the -core inverse and the -core inverse [
11]
. More precisely, we have the following statements:  - (1)
- If  and , then the -core inverse coincides with the -core inverse; 
- (2)
- If  and , then the -core inverse coincides with the -core inverse. 
Theorem 9.  Let  and . Then the following are equivalent:
 - (1)
- a is -core invertible with ; 
- (2)
-  and ; 
- (3)
- ,  and . 
Proof.   and  are trivial by Lemma 4 and the definition of the -core inverse.
. From  we have that x is the -core inverse of a.
. It is sufficient to prove . We have .    □
 Under certain conditions, the product of a -core invertible element and a -core invertible element is -core invertible.
Theorem 10.  Let  and  such that a is -core invertible, b is -core invertible, , ,  and . Then  is -core invertible and .
 Proof.  Notice that
        
        and
        
        imply 
 is 
-core invertible and 
.    □
 We also study when the sum of a -core invertible element and a -core invertible element is -core invertible.
Theorem 11.  Let  and  such that a is -core invertible, b is -core invertible, ,  and . Then  is -core invertible and .
 Proof.  Let x be the -core inverse of a and y be the -core inverse of b, then by Theorem 8, we have     □
 It is easy to check the following propositions by Definition 3 and Theorem 8.
Proposition 2.  Let  and  such that a is -core invertible. Then  if and only if .
 Proposition 3.  Let  and  such that a is -core invertible. Then
 - (1)
- If , then  is an inner inverse of  and q is idempotent; 
- (2)
- If , then ; 
- (3)
- If , then ; 
- (4)
- If  and , then .