On separable torsion-free modules of countable density character (Q1178878)

The ``black box methods'' of Shelah have been used very successfully for providing realizations of rings as endomorphism rings of modules. The modules which appear in these constructions have very large cardinalities. The paper provides methods inspired by the black box model which enables the realization of rings as endomorphism rings of ``small'' modules. They prove, for example the following Theorem 8. Let \(A\) be a torsion-free algebra over a complete discrete valuation ring \(R\) such that \(A\) is generated by fewer than \(2^{\aleph_ 0}\) elements as an \(R\)-module. Then there exist a free \(R\)-module \(F\) of countable rank and an \(R\)-module \(G\) which contains \(F\) and is contained in the completion \(\widehat F\) of \(F\) such that \(\hbox{End} G=A\oplus\hbox{End}_ 0 G\) where \(\hbox{End}_ 0 G\) is the ideal of all finite rank endomorphisms of \(G\). It is shown that the rank of \(G\) is necessarily \(2^{\aleph_ 0}\) but \(G\) is also ``small'' inasmuch as it contains a dense submodule of countable rank. For more general rings the problem is to define suitable (partial) completions within certain products thus allowing support arguments. An essential set-theoretic tool is the use of a large ``almost-disjoint'' family of subsets of \(\omega\).