Walker groups. (Q2517644): Difference between revisions

A reformulation of Walker's theorem on cancellation [see \textit{E. A. Walker}, Proc. Am. Math. Soc. 7, 898-902 (1956; Zbl 0071.25203) and \textit{P. M. Cohn}, Proc. Am. Math. Soc. 7, 520-521 (1956; Zbl 0070.25701)] says that any two homomorphisms from an abelian group \(W\) onto \(\mathbb Z\) have isomorphic kernels. It does not have a constructive proof, even for \(W\) a subgroup of \(\mathbb Z^3\). In this paper, the author gives a constructive proof of Walker's theorem for \(W\) a direct sum, over any discrete index set, of groups of the following two kinds: Butler groups with weakly computable heights, and finite-rank torsion-free groups \(B\) with computable relative heights (that is, all quotients of \(B\) by finite-rank pure subgroups have computable heights).