A ring $R$ is called {\it quasi-Baer} if the right annihilator of every right ideal of $R$ is generated by an idempotent as a right ideal. We investigate the quasi-Baer property of skew group rings and fixed rings under a finite group action on a semiprime ring and their applications to $C^*$-algebras. Various examples to illustrate and delimit our results are provided.

The positive cohomology groups of a finite group acting on a ring vanish when the ring has a norm one element. In this note we give explicit homotopies on the level of cochains when the group is cyclic, which allows us to express any cocycle of a cyclic group as the coboundary of an explicit cochain. The formulas in this note are closely related to the effective problems considered in previous joint work with Eli Aljadeff.