Test groups for Whitehead groups. (Q1945726)

Since the solution of the well-known Whitehead problem in Abelian group theory by the third author, Whitehead groups and their generalizations have been considered and investigated in a long list of substantial papers. Recall that a Whitehead group is an Abelian group \(A\) such that \(\mathrm{Ext}_{\mathbb Z}(A,\mathbb Z)=0\). It is a natural question to ask for the existence of other groups different from \(\mathbb Z\) that can decide the Whitehead property. These are called `Whitehead test groups'. Obviously, the separable groups are such groups since they have \(\mathbb Z\) as a summand. However, it is not true that Whitehead groups always have vanishing Ext-functor with all separable groups. The three authors are therefore interested in the class of dual groups -- a subclass of the class of separable groups. Recall that a dual group is a group of the form \(\mathrm{Ext}_{\mathbb Z}(G,\mathbb Z)\). It is shown that in any model of ZFC the following two properties are equivalent:{\parindent=7mm\begin{itemize}\item[(i)] the tensor product of any two Whitehead groups is again a Whitehead group;\item[(ii)] every dual group of a Whitehead group is a Whitehead test group. \end{itemize}} The authors then investigate models of ZFC in which the two equivalent conditions above fail and models in which they hold. Finally, it is investigated what happens under Martin's axiom.