Hereditary Noetherian prime rings. II: Finitely generated projective modules (Q1306894)

This second paper of the authors' trilogy on the structure of projective modules over an HNP ring \(R\) (Part~I [J. Algebra 218, No. 2, 307-337 (1999)] is reviewed above, see Zbl 0946.16016) introduces two invariants for a finitely generated projective right \(R\)-module \(P\) of uniform dimension \(\text{udim}(P)\geq 2\). (a) The genus \(\Psi(P)\) of \(P\), which assigns to \(P\) the family of integers \(\{\rho(P,M)\mid M\) a prime ideal of \(R\}\), where \(\rho(P,M)=\text{udim}(P)\) if \(M=0\) and \(\rho(P,M)=\text{length}(P/PM)\) if \(M\neq 0\). (b) The Steinitz class \({\mathcal S}(P)\) of \(P\), defined as follows. Fix a Dedekind closure \(S\) of \(R\) and a uniform right ideal \(U_0\) of \(S\). The genus for finitely generated projective \(S\)-modules induces a group homomorphism from \(K_0(S)\) to a suitable direct product of copies of \(\mathbb{Z}\), the kernel of which is called the ideal class group \(G(R)\) of \(R\). The element \[ {\mathcal S}(P)=[PS]-\text{udim}(P)\cdot[U_0]\in G(R) \] is then called the Steinitz class of \(P\). The main result of the paper under review is the following. If \(\text{udim}(P)\geq 2\), then the pair \((\Psi(P),{\mathcal S}(P))\) forms a complete, independent set of invariants for the isomorphism class of \(P\). (Note, however, that if \(\text{udim}(P)=1\), then these invariants determine \(P\) only up to stable isomorphism.) Both the genus and the Steinitz class are additive on direct sums; so the above incorporates that if \(P\), \(Q\) and \(X\) are finitely generated projective \(R\)-modules such that \(P\oplus X\cong Q\oplus X\) and \(\text{udim}(P)\geq 2\), then \(P\cong Q\). Among the many applications of the main theorem, two are particularly noteworthy. (1) If \(P\) and \(Q\) are finitely generated projective with \(\text{udim}(P)<\text{udim}(Q)\), then \(Q\cong P\oplus X\) for some \(X\), if and only if \(\Psi(P)\leq\Psi(Q)\), which has been proved by \textit{R.~B.~Warfield}, jun. [J. Algebra 66, No. 2, 425-447 (1980; Zbl 0449.16011)], using different methods. (2) Necessary and sufficient conditions in terms of towers of simple \(R\)-modules are provided for the existence of a bound on the numbers of generators of right ideals of \(R\). Part~III of the trilogy [J. Algebra 225, No. 1, 275-298 (2000; Zbl 0955.16025)] deals with the details of the structure of infinitely generated projective \(R\)-modules.