Flat covers and factorizations (Q1849114)

It has been known for some time that \(R\)-modules have injective envelopes for all rings \(R\), but that the existence of projective covers is guaranteed precisely if \(R\) is perfect. However, another point of view allows to see ``flatness'' as dual of injectivity, and the existence of flat covers in every category \(R\)-Mod was established recently [\textit{R. Bican, R. El Bashir} and \textit{E. Enochs}, Bull. Lond. Math. Soc. 33, 385-390 (2001; Zbl 1029.16002)]. The flat modules are precisely the directed colimits of the projective ones, and it was shown earlier that the existence of flat covers is equivalent to the existence of flat precovers (\(g:F\rightarrow M\) is a flat precover of \(M\) if \(F\) is flat and every \(v:G\rightarrow M\) with \(G\) flat factorizes through \(g\)). Already some work has been done to generalize these results [see for example \textit{R. El Bashir}, ``Covers and directed colimits'', to appear in Algebr. Represent. Theory; \textit{E. Enochs} and \textit{L. Oyonarte}, Proc. Am. Math. Soc. 130, 1285-1292 (2002; Zbl 0993.16001)]. This paper obtains the existence of flat precovers as the consequence of a new result on the existence of certain cofibrantly generated weak factorization systems [introduced by \textit{J. Adámek, H. Herrlich, J. Rosický} and \textit{W. Tholen}, Cah. Topologie Geóm. Différ. Catégoriques 43, 83-106 (2002; Zbl 1002.18002)]. More precisely, if \(\mathcal F\) is a class of \(R\)-modules, define an \(\mathcal F\)-mono as a mono with its cokernel in \(\mathcal F\). Then the author shows that if \(\mathcal F\) contains all free modules and is closed under directed colimits, pure submodules, pure quotients and extensions, then the class of all \(\mathcal F\)-monos is the left-hand part of a weak factorization system. In particular, for \(\mathcal F\) the class of flat modules, every homomorphism of modules has a factorization \(gf\) with \(f\) a flat mono. Applying this to \(0\rightarrow M\) gives \(0\rightarrow F\rightarrow M\) with \(F\rightarrow M\) a flat precover of \(M\). The problem of the existence of flat precovers in the context of (any) variety is also briefly considered.