Whitehead groups of localizations and the endomorphism class group. (Q1419012)

For \(A\) an associative ring, let \(\widetilde{\text{End}}_0(A)\) denote the abelian group generated by isomorphism classes \([A^n,\alpha]\), where \(\alpha:A^n\to A^n\) is an endomorphism, and relations \((1)\;[A^n, 0]=0\) and \((2)\;[A^n,\alpha]+[A^m,\beta]=[A^s,\gamma]\) if there is an exact sequence \(0\to (A^n,\alpha)\to (A^s,\gamma)\to (A^m,\beta)\to 0\). Let \(A[x]\) denote the polynomial ring in indeterminate \(x\), \(\varepsilon :A[x]\to A\) the usual augmentation map \(x\mapsto 0\), and \(P\subset A[x]\) the set of polynomials \(p\) such that \(\varepsilon(p)\) is invertible. Moreover, denote by \(\Sigma\) the set of matrices \(\sigma\) with entries in \(A[x]\), such that \(\varepsilon(\sigma)\) is invertible. There is a formal localization \(A[x]\to \Sigma^{-1}A[x]\) and an induced homomorphism \(\varepsilon_{\Sigma}:\Sigma^{-1}A[x]\to A\). The first theorem of the author is the following Theorem A: The assignment \([A^n,\alpha]\mapsto D(1-\alpha x)\) induces an isomorphism \(\widetilde{\text{End}}_0(A)\cong \varepsilon^{-1}(1)/C\), where \(C\) is the subgroup generated by \(\{ (a+ab)(1+ba)^{-1}| \, a,b\in A[x], \varepsilon(ab)=\varepsilon(ba)=0\}\), and \(D\) is a ``determinant-like'' function. The second and more general theorem requires the notion of local augmentation: A ring homomorphism \(\varepsilon:B\to A\) is an augmentation if it is a split surjection, \(\varepsilon\) is local if \(\varepsilon(\alpha)\) is invertible if \(\alpha \) is. Any augmentation may be made local \(\Sigma^{-1}B\to A\), by localizing at matrices \(\alpha\) with entries in \(B\) such that \(\varepsilon(\alpha)\) is invertible. The main theorem of this paper is Theorem B: Let \(\varepsilon: B\to A\) be a local augmentation, then there is an isomorphism \(K_{1}(B)\cong K_{1}(A)\oplus \frac{\varepsilon^{-1} (1)} {C}\), where \(C\) is the group generated by \(\{ (a+ab)(1+ba)^{-1}| \, a,b\in A[x], \varepsilon(ab)=\varepsilon(ba)=0\}\).