Big direct sums of copies of a module have well behaved indecomposable decompositions (Q1588389)

It is a well-known fact that if \(M\) is a direct sum of indecomposable modules with local endomorphism rings, then the property that every local direct summand of \(M\) is a direct summand is equivalent to several other strong properties, such as complementing direct summands, or \(M\) having the exchange property. It is also known that, if \(M\) is a module such that every local direct summand of \(M\) is a direct summand, then \(M\) admits an indecomposable decomposition, though the indecomposable summands need not have local endomorphism rings. In the present paper, the authors prove the interesting result that if \(M\) is an indecomposable module such that every local direct summand of a direct sum of copies of \(M\) is a direct summand, then \(M\) has a local endomorphism ring. This result may be regarded as a kind of ``Transfinite Fitting Lemma'', and the proof is based on set-theoretic arguments. The authors leave open the question of whether the result remains valid for an indecomposable module \(M\) such that every local direct summand of a countable direct sum of copies of \(M\) is a direct summand.