Generalized Hill lemma, Kaplansky theorem for cotorsion pairs and some applications. (Q1011145)

The authors prove a generalized version of a famous theorem of \textit{P. Hill} [Proc. Am. Math. Soc. 82, 347-350 (1981; Zbl 0467.20041)]. The context here is \(\mathcal C\)-filtered modules, that is, modules \(M\) which have a continuous filtration \(\{M_\alpha:\alpha<\tau\}\) such that each successive quotient \(M_{\alpha+1}/M_\alpha\) is a member of the class \(\mathcal C\). The main theorem, which they call the Generalized Hill Lemma, applies to any ring and any infinite regular cardinal \(\kappa\), and says that if \(\mathcal C\) is a set of \(<\kappa\)-presented modules and \(M\) has a \(\mathcal C\)-filtration, then there is a large family \(\mathcal F\) of \(\mathcal C\)-filtered submodules of \(M\) with nice properties; in particular, if \(N\in\mathcal F\) and \(X\) is a subset of \(M\) of cardinality \(<\kappa\), then there is \(P\) in \(\mathcal F\) such that \(N\cup X\subseteq P\) and \(P/N\) is \(\mathcal C\)-filtered and \(<\kappa\)-presented. They use this to prove a generalization of Kaplansky's theorem on the structure of projective modules; namely that a cotorsion pair \((\mathcal{A,B})\) which is of countable type satisfies the property that every \(A\in\mathcal A\) is \(\mathcal C\)-filtered, where \(\mathcal C\) is the class of countably-presented members of \(\mathcal A\). Another application is to solve a problem of \textit{S. Bazzoni} and \textit{L. Salce} [Rocky Mt. J. Math. 34, No. 2, 417-439 (2004; Zbl 1062.13002)] by showing that every strongly flat module over a valuation domain is free-by-divisible. The final application is a proof of the structure of Matlis localizations of commutative rings.