Functional degrees and arithmetic applications. I: The set of functional degrees (Q2161166)

The topic of functional degrees of maps is interesting in topic Algebra. In this paper, the authors give a further development of the Aichinger-Moosbauer calculus of functional degrees of maps between commutative groups. For any finitely generated commutative groups A and B, they compute the complete set D(A, B) of functional degrees of all maps between A and B. Let \(\mathcal{P }\) the set of (positive) prime numbers and \(\mathbb{N}\) the non-negative integers and put \(\mathbb{Z}+ := \mathbb{N} \ {0}\). For \(n \in \mathbb{N}\), we set \(\mathbb{Z}_{n} := \mathbb{Z}/n\mathbb{Z}\). In particular, \(\mathbb{Z}_{0} = \mathbb{Z}\). Moreover, we endow the set \(\tilde{\mathbb{N}}:= \mathbb{N} \cup \{-\infty,\infty \}\) with the most evident total ordering, in which \(-\infty\) is the least element and \(\infty\) is the greatest element. Let \((A, +)\) be a commutative group. For \(n \in \mathbb{ Z}^{+}\) we define \(A[n] := \{x \in A | nx = 0\}\) and \(A[n^{\infty}] := \{x \in A | nkx = 0 \text{ for some }k\in\mathbb{Z}^{+}\}\). For a prime number \(p\), we say that \(A\) is a \(p\)-\textbf{group} if \(A = A[p^{\infty}]\). The \textbf{torsion subgroup} of \(A\) is \(A[\mathrm{tors}] := \{x \in A | nx = 0 \text{ for some }n \in \mathbb{Z}^{+}\} =\bigcup _{n\in \mathbb{Z}^{+}}A[n]\). We say that \(A\) is \textbf{torsion} if \(A = A[\mathrm{tors}]\). We say that \(A\) has \textbf{finite exponent} if \(A = A[n]\)for some \(n \in \mathbb{Z}^{+}\), in which case the least such \(n\) is called the \textbf{exponent} of \(A\) and is denoted by \(\exp(A)\). In the other case, we may write \(\exp(A) = \infty\). We also set \[ e(A) := \begin{cases} \exp(A) \text{ if }\exp(A) < \infty, \\ 0 \text{ if }\exp(A) = \infty. \end{cases} \] For a finitely generated commutative group A, we denote by rank(A) the least n such that A is a direct sum of n cyclic groups. A commutative group A is \textbf{torsion-split} if \(A[\mathrm{tors}]\) is a direct summand of A. Every finitely generated commutative group is torsion-split. The main results are as following: Theorem 1. Let \(A\) and \(B\) be nontrivial commutative groups. Assume that \(A\) is torsion and \(B\) is torsion-split. Let \(P\) be the set of all \(p \in \mathcal{P}\) such that \(A[p^{\infty}]\) is nonzero and \(B[p^{\infty}]\) is nonzero. If \(P\) is finite and if, for each \(p \in P\), \(A[p^{\infty}]\) is finite and \(B[p^{\infty}]\) has finite exponent, say \(\exp(B[p^{\infty}]) = p^{\beta_{p}} \) and \(A[p^{\infty}] = \bigoplus^{r_{p}} _{i=1} Z_{p^{\alpha_{{p,i}}}}\) with \(\alpha_{p,1} \geq ....\geq \alpha_{p,r_{p}} , \) then \[ \delta^{\circ} := \delta^{\circ}(A,B) = \max_{p\in P} \left(\sum^{r_{p}}_{i=1}(p^{\alpha_{p},i} - 1) + (\beta_{p} - 1)(p - 1)p^{\alpha_{p},1-1}\right), \] with \(\delta^{\circ}(A, B) = 0\) if \(P = \Phi\), and \[ D(A,B) =\begin{cases} {-\infty} \cup \{ 0, 1, 2, . . . , \delta^{\circ} \} \text{ if }\exists p \in \mathcal{P}, A = A[p^{\infty}], B = B[p^{\infty}], \\ {-\infty} \cup \{0, 1, 2, . . . , \delta^{\circ}\} \cup \{\infty \} \text{ otherwise}. \end{cases} \] Theorem 2. Let \(A\) and \(B\) be nontrivial commutative groups. Assume that \(A\) is torsion and \(B\) is torsion-split. Let \(P^{\prime}\) be the set of all \(p \in \mathcal{P}\) such that \(A[p^{\infty}]\) is nonzero and \(B[p^{\infty}]\) is nonzero. If \(P^{\prime}\) is infinite or if there exists \(p \in P^{\prime}\) such that \(A[p^{\infty}]\) is infinity or \(B[p^{\infty}]\) has infinite exponent, then \[ D(A,B) =\begin{cases} {-\infty} \cup \mathbb{N} \text{ if }\exists p \in \mathcal{P^{\prime}}, A = A[p^{\infty}], B = B[p^{\infty}], \# A < \infty, \exp(B)=\infty ,\\ \tilde{\mathbb{N}} \text{ otherwise}. \end{cases} \] Aichinger-Moosbauer developed the notion of degree for functions between two abelian groups that allows them to generalize the Chevalley-Warning Theorems from fields to noncommutative rings or abelian groups of prime power order. I persume there is a prospect for further advanced extension of the results in this paper.