On locally free Abelian groups. (Q2387831)

An Abelian group is called `locally free' if all its subgroups of finite rank are free. In the present paper it is proved that a torsion-free group is a locally free group if and only if it is a direct limit of an inductive system of finitely generated free groups such that each map in this system is an embedding onto a direct summand (such a system is called `simple'). Using this characterization, the author constructs a locally free group which has no free direct summands.