Separable Abelian \(p\)-groups having certain prescribed chains (Q1178325)

An Abelian \(p\)-group \(G\) is \(p^{\omega+1}\)-projective if \(p^{\omega+1}\hbox{Ext}(G,X)=0\) for all \(p\)-groups \(X\). Cutler noted that every \(p^{\omega+1}\)-projective group \(G\) of cardinality \(\kappa\) possesses a \(\kappa\)-filtration \(G=\bigcup_{\alpha<\kappa}G_ \alpha\) (\(| G_ \alpha|<\kappa\), \(G_ \alpha<G_ \beta\) for \(\alpha<\beta\), \(\bigcup_{\alpha<\lambda}G_ \alpha=G_ \lambda\) for limit ordinals \(\lambda\)) such that \(p^{\omega+1}(G/G_ \alpha)=0\) for all \(\alpha<\kappa\). Fuchs asked whether this property characterizes \(p^{\omega+1}\)-projective groups. The answer is no under certain set- theoretic assumptions. In fact, assuming the generalized continuum hypothesis, the authors produce arbitrarily large counterexamples with other remarkable properties such as being essentially indecomposable, and not \(p^ \sigma\)-projective for any ordinal \(\sigma\). The authors use ``Shelah's Black Box'' to construct groups \(G\) with most of the desired properties and an endomorphism ring of a certain form. A proper choice of a parameter involved in the endomorphism ring ensures that \(G\) is essentially indecomposable. These results improve examples by Cutler, Mader and Megibben considerably in several directions.