Characterization and isomorphism of endomorphism rings of locally free modules (Q1320249)

There are two major results in this paper. The first is a set of necessary and sufficient conditions for a unital ring to be isomorphic to the endomorphism ring of a locally free module over an arbitrary ring. This result is applied to characterize endomorphism rings of locally free modules over (left) noetherian, perfect, semiperfect and Kasch rings. The second major result is a necessary condition on the rings for the isomorphism of the endomorphism rings of locally free modules over two rings in a given class to imply the Morita equivalence of the rings. This is applied to show that if the endomorphism rings of locally free modules over two (left) Noetherian, perfect or Kasch rings are isomorphic, then the rings are Morita equivalent. The main techniques used are non- commutative localization and equivalences of categories.