Modules invariant under automorphisms of their covers and envelopes. (Q2339620)

The authors take as starting point the existing results about modules which are invariant under automorphisms of their injective envelope, called automorphism-invariant modules, to develop a general framework where results of this kind can be obtained by means of a general theory of modules which are invariant under automorphisms of their covers or of their envelopes. For this purpose they define, for any class \(\mathcal X\) of modules closed under isomorphisms, the notions of \(\mathcal X\)-automorphism-invariant and \(\mathcal X\)-automorphism-coinvariant and they show that several earlier results on automorphism invariance are particular instances of more general results like the following: If \(u\to X\) is a monomorphic \(\mathcal X\)-envelope of a module \(M\) such that \(M\) is \(\mathcal X\)-automorphism-invariant, \(\text{End}(X)/J(\text{End}(X))\) is a von Neumann regular right self-injective ring and idempotents lift modulo \(J(\text{End}(X))\), then \(\text{End}(M)/J(\text{End}(M))\) is also von Neumann regular and idempotents lift modulo \(J(\text{End}(M))\) which, in particular, implies that \(M\) satisfies the finite exchange property. If, furthermore, one assumes that every direct summand of \(M\) has an \(\mathcal X\)-envelope, then \(M\) has a decomposition \(M=A\oplus B\) where \(A\) is square-free and \(B\) is \(\mathcal X\)-endomorphism-invariant. If one assumes in addition that for \(\mathcal X\)-endomorphism-invariant modules the finite exchange property implies the full exchange property, then \(M\) also satisfies the full exchange property, thus extending a result of \textit{B. Zimmermann-Huisgen} and \textit{W. Zimmermann} [J. Algebra 88, 416-434 (1984; Zbl 0533.16012)] for modules invariant under endomorphisms of their pure-injective envelope. After giving some dual results for automorphism-coinvariant modules, the paper ends with a section devoted to applications in which the results obtained are applied to the case in which \(\mathcal X\) is one of the following classes: 1) injective modules, 2) pure-injective modules, 3) projective modules over a right perfect ring, 4) projective modules over a semiperfect ring and finally 5) the cotorsion class \(\mathcal C\) of a cotorsion pair \((\mathcal{F,C})\) such that \(\mathcal F\) is closed under direct limits and every module has an \(\mathcal F\)-cover.