Almost free groups in varieties

A group G of cardinality \(\lambda\) in a variety V is almost free in V if every subgroup of G which can be generated by fewer than \(\lambda\) elements is contained in a V-free subgroup of G. Clearly every V-free group is almost V-free, the interest lies in establishing which varieties contain non-free almost free groups. In this paper it is shown that any torsion-free variety of groups contains such a group of cardinality \(\aleph_ n\) for each positive integer n. (This result was obtained for the variety of abelian groups by \textit{P. C. Eklof} [Proc. Am. Math. Soc. 47, 65-72 (1975; Zbl 0268.20036)] and for the variety of all groups by \textit{A. H. Mekler} [Can. J. Math. 32, 1206-1228 (1980; Zbl 0413.20023)].) The technique used consists of a very careful construction of a suitable presentation and the fact that in groups kernels are subalgebras is important. The result can be extended to other types of algebras (such as rings without identity) with the latter property, and even, with a little care, to rings with identity. However, nothing is known about the torsion case; clearly a general result of this type is impossible since in \(A_ p\) (the variety of abelian groups of prime exponent p) all groups are free, but it is not known whether there exist torsion varieties with non-free almost free groups.

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