Finitary automorphism groups over commutative rings (Q1612155)

Finitary linear groups over fields and more recently over division rings have received considerable attention in recent years. (See [\textit{R. E. Phillips}, in NATO ASI Ser., Ser. C, Math. Phys. Sci. 471, 111-146 (1995; Zbl 0840.20048)] for a survey of work up to about 1994.) In the paper under review, the author, as he mentions, widens the scope of the investigations to cover modules over arbitrary commutative rings; here all rings have identities and all modules are unital. (Finitary groups over principal ideal domains did arise briefly towards the end of the author's paper [J. Algebra 223, No. 1, 295-306 (2000; Zbl 0947.20027)].) Let \(R\) be a commutative ring and \(M\) a left \(R\)-module. Set \[ \text{FAut}_RM=\{g\in\Aut_RM:M(g-1)\text{ is Noetherian as \(R\)-module}\}. \] This is a subgroup of \(\Aut_RM\), called the finitary automorphism group of \(M\) over \(R\). The author, by an example in the end of this paper, shows that if one replaces ``Noetherian'' by ``finitely generated'' in the definition of \(\text{FAut}_RM\), then it will not be, in general, a subgroup of \(\Aut_RM\). The author extends the structure theorems of \textit{U. Meierfrankenfeld, R. E. Phillips} and \textit{O. Puglisi} [J. Lond. Math. Soc., II. Ser. 47, No. 1, 31-40 (1993; Zbl 0738.20043)] for locally soluble and unipotent subgroups of \(\text{FAut}_RM\) from the field to the commutative ring case. There is much more in this paper than can be described here.