Polyserial modules over valuation domains (Q1117982)

In the following R is a valuation domain (1\(\in R)\) in which the ideals form a chain under inclusion; it is assumed that R is not equal to its field Q of quotients. A main motivation of this paper is to learn about \((i)\quad the\) class of submodules of finitely generated R-modules, \((ii)\quad the\) class of polyserial R-modules, and \((iii)\quad the\) class of the ``weakly'' polyserial modules, i.e. the R-modules M having a finite chain of submodules \(0=M_ 0<M_ 1<...<M_ n=M\), such that each factor \(M_ i/M_{i-1}\) \((i=1,...,n)\) is uniserial. The purpose is to find the relationship between these classes by pointing out their common features and their differences. All the modules under consideration are subject to certain finiteness conditions, and as a result, they admit numerical invariants. The invariants interested here are the length, the Malcev rank, the Fleischer rank, the Goldie dimension and its dual.