Murley groups and the torsion-freeness of Ext. (Q716470)

This paper addresses the homological properties of torsion-free finite rank Abelian groups and in particular the question of when \(\text{Ext}(A,B)\) is torsion-free. It contains many technical results whose flavour is illustrated by the main theorem: Let \(B\) be a finite rank torsion-free Abelian group whose outer type is divisible. The following properties are equivalent: 1. \(B\) is a finitely faithful \(S\)-group such that for every torsion-free group \(A\) for which \(\text{Ext}(A,B)\) is torsion-free, if \(U\) is a finite rank pure subgroup of \(A\), then \(U\) is \(B\)-cobalanced in \(A\). 2. \(B\) is a finite direct sum of irreducible Murley groups every pair of which are either isomorphic or admit no homomorphisms between them. For every prime \(p\), either \(p\) divides \(B\), or \(p\) divides all but one isomorphism class of these summands.