The class number of an Abelian group. (Q2456210)

The study of direct decompositions for modules, in general, and for Abelian groups, in particular, leads to interesting and important problems concerning unique decomposition in a direct sum of indecomposables or some various cancellations from direct sums properties. During the time, positive or negative solutions for this kind of problems were exhibited by many authors, and many of these solutions suggest that in general the study of this kind of properties is not easy. One of the main aims of the present paper and its Addendum [J. Algebra 314, No. 2, 1009-1010 (2007; see the following review Zbl 1132.20033)] is to explain why this kind of problems are so difficult: the study of direct sum decompositions of some finite rank torsion-free Abelian groups implies important problems in number theory. The groups in this paper are Abelian. A reduced torsion-free finite rank group \(G\) is called `cocommutative' if its endomorphism ring \(\text{End}(G)\) modulo the nil radical, denoted by \(E(G)\), is commutative. The author studies the class number of \(G\), \(h(G)\), which is the number of isomorphism classes of groups \(H\) that are locally isomorphic (= nearly isomorphic) to \(G\) (Corollary 3.2 -- via the Picard group of \(E(G)\), Theorem 5.3 etc.). The group \(G\) satisfies `the power cancellation property' if \(G^n\cong H^n\) for some group \(H\) and integer \(n>0\) implies that \(G\cong H\), and \(G\) has a `\(\Sigma\)-unique decomposition' if \(G^n\) has a unique direct sum decomposition for each integer \(n>0\). In the study, the category \(\mathbf P_o(G)=\{\)groups \(H\mid H\oplus H'=G^m\) for some group \(H'\) and some integer \(m>0\}\) and a functor \(A(\cdot)\colon\mathbf P_o(G)\to\mathbf P_o(E(G))\), where \(\mathbf P_o(E(G))\) is the category of finitely generated projective \(E(G)\)-modules, occur. \(G\) has `internal cancellation' if given \(H,K,L\in\mathbf P_o(G)\) such that \(H\oplus K\cong H\oplus L\) then \(K\cong L\). The class number is used to study the torsion-free finite rank groups \(G\) that have the power cancellation property (Theorem 5.2, Theorem 5.3, Theorem 5.6) or a \(\Sigma\)-unique decomposition (Theorem 6.1, Theorem 6.5). Moreover, the author shows that the power cancellation property for cocommutative strongly indecomposable reduced torsion-free finite rank groups is equivalent to the problem of determining the class number of an algebraic number field (Theorem 7.1, Theorem 7.3). The last part of the paper is concerned with connections between direct decompositions of finite rank torsion-free groups and number theory: The author uses the Mayer-Vietoris sequence to show that there are finite groups associated with \(G\) of orders \(L(p)\), \(\widehat m_p\), and \(\widehat n_p\) such that \(h(G)=h(\overline G)\tfrac{\widehat m_p}{L(p)\widehat n_p}\) (here \(\overline G\) is the integral closure of \(G\)). Let \(E(p)=\mathbb{Z}+p\overline E\) where \(p\) is a rational prime and \(\overline E\) is the ring of algebraic integers in the algebraic number field \(\mathbf k=\mathbb{Q}\overline E\). Let \(G(p)\) be a group such that \(\text{End}(G(p))=E(p)\). It is proved in Theorem 9.2 that the sequence \(\{L(p)h(G(p))/h(\overline G(p))\mid\) primes \(p\}\) is asymptotically equal to the sequence \(\{p^{f-1}\mid\) primes \(p\}\) where \(f=[\mathbf k:\mathbb{Q}]\). Furthermore, for quadratic number fields \(\mathbf k\), \(h(\mathbf k)=1\) iff \(\{L(p)h(G(p))\mid\) primes \(p\}\) is asymptotically equal to the sequence of rational primes (Corollary 9.6). This connects unique factorization in number fields with the sequence of rational primes, and with direct sum properties of integrally closed cocommutative strongly indecomposable torsion-free finite rank groups. In the end the author applies these results in the study of ideals \(I\) if \(E(G)\), where \(G\) is a cocommutative strongly indecomposable torsion-free group of finite rank, with the property that every unit of \(E/I\) lifts to a unit of \(E\) (Section 10 and Section 11), and in the study of groups \(G\) such that \(\mathbb{Q} E(G)\) is a (imaginary) quadratic number field (Section 12, Section 13, Section 14).