Picard groups of some module categories (Q2281465)

An auto-equivalence of an (additive) category $\mathcal{C}$ is an (additive) functor $F : \mathcal{C}\to \mathcal{C}$ for which there exists a functor $G: \mathcal{C}\to \mathcal{C}$ such that both $FG$ and $GF$ are naturally equivalent to the identity functor $I$ of $\mathcal{C}$. The equivalence classes of auto-equivalence functors on $\mathcal{C}$ form a group under the composition of functors (provided this is a set), called the Picard group, $\operatorname{Pic}\mathcal{C}$, of the category $\mathcal{C}$. The authors determine the Picard groups of the categories of torsion and torsion-free modules over an integral domain $R$. For the category of torsion-free modules, this group is isomorphic to the Picard group $\operatorname{Pic}R$ of $R$, that is, the group of isomorphism classes of invertible $R$-modules with the tensor product as the group operation. The case of the category of torsion-modules is particularly interesting. The Picard group turns out to be isomorphic to a group of isomorphism classes of suitably defined ``cyclones''. Cyclones are suitable divisible torsion $R$-module of flat dimension 1. The operation on the isomorphism classes of cyclones is induced by the operation Tor$^R_1(-,-)$. Moreover, the structure of the group of clones of $Q/R$, where $Q$ denotes the quotient field of $R$, is described in terms of the inverse system of the unit groups $U(R/Rr)$ of the proper quotients $R/Rr$ of $R$, $r$ a non-zero element in $R$. The group of clones was introduced by the first author in 1985 and studied by him and collaborators in some subsequent articles. The paper is very interesting and written well.