Hom and Ext, revisited (Q2219002)

Throughout this paper, \(R\) is a commutative noetherian local ring. For finitely generated \(R\)-modules \(M\) and \(N\), the authors in the paper under review prove a number of results of the form: if \(\mathrm{Hom}_{R}(M, N)\) has some nice properties and \(\mathrm{Ext}_{R}^{1\leq i\leq n}(M, N)=0\) for some \(n\), then \(M\) (and sometimes \(N\)) must be close to free. For example, they prove that if \(\mathrm{depth}M\geq t\), \(N\in\Omega\mathrm{Deep}(R)\), \(\mathrm{Hom}_{R}(M, N)\in \mathrm{DF}(R)\) and \(\mathrm{Ext}_{R}^{1\leq i\leq t-1}(M, N)=0\) then \(N\) has a free summand. Some applications, including a modest case of the Auslander-Reiten conjecture are given.