Characterizations of Warfield groups (Q1270982)

An abelian group is called simply presented if it can be defined in terms of generators and relations so that each relation involves at most two generators. Warfield groups are direct summands of simply presented groups. In the \(p\)-local case, where the groups are modules over \(\mathbb{Z}_p\), the localization of the ring of integers at the prime \(p\), Warfield groups are called Warfield modules. In a 1986 paper, Hill and Megibben introduced the definition of a knice submodule and used the Axiom 3 approach to describe Warfield modules. The author makes explicit some characterizations implied in the Hill-Megibben paper. Theorem 2.2. The following are equivalent for a \(\mathbb{Z}_p\)-module \(M\): (i) \(M\) has a composition series consisting of quasi-sequentially nice submodules; (ii) \(M\) has a composition series \(\{N_\alpha:\alpha<\lambda\}\) of nice submodules so that if \(N_{\alpha+1}/N_\alpha\) is infinite, then \(N_{\alpha+1}\oplus\langle x_\alpha\rangle\) is a valuated coproduct in \(M\) for some \(x_\alpha\) in \(M\); (iii) \(M\) has a composition series consisting of knice submodules satisfying the conditions in (ii); (iv) \(M\) has a composition series consisting of knice submodules. A nice submodule \(N\) of \(M\) is called quasi-sequentially nice provided that for each \(x\) in \(M\) there is a \(k<\omega\) such that the coset \(p^kx+N\) contains an element having the same height sequence as \(p^kx+N\). For the global case, the author introduces a global definition of quasi-sequentially nice subgroups to obtain the following characterization. Theorem 3.4. The following are equivalent for an abelian group \(G\): (i) \(G\) has a composition series consisting of quasi-sequentially nice subgroups; (ii) \(G\) has a composition series \(\{N_\alpha:\alpha<\lambda\}\) of nice subgroups so that if \(N_{\alpha+1}/N_\alpha\) is infinite, then \(N_{\alpha+1}\oplus\langle x_\alpha\rangle\) is a valuated coproduct in \(G\) for some \(x_\alpha\) in \(G\); (iii) \(G\) has a composition series of knice subgroups satisfying the conditions in (ii); (iv) \(G\) has a composition series consisting of knice subgroups. Finally, the author gives a new proof of a characterization of Warfield groups in terms of nice subgroups and valuated coproducts.