No label defined (Q4815937)

It is well-known that the Krull-Schmidt theorem for a ring \(A\) is true if the endomorphism rings of indecomposable \(A\)-modules are local. The latter property of (commutative) rings \(A\) is studied in this paper. In the first section the author shows that a local ring \(A\) is Henselian iff any (not necessarily commutative) indecomposable \(A\)-algebra that is finitely generated as an \(A\)-module is local (property \((*)\)). In the second section the following property \((**)\) for a ring \(A\) is considered: Any indecomposable torsion-free \(A\)-algebra of finite rank is local. A Henselian valuation ring \(A\) is proved to satisfy \((**)\) if its residual ring satisfies \((**)\). Using this result several times allows to establish the property \((**)\) for rings of integers of multidimensional local fields. In the final section the preservation of the property \((*)\) under passage to the inductive limit is proved.