The Chase radical and reduced products. (Q995613)

In the present paper the \(\aleph_1\)-freeness of some reduced products \(\prod^r_{\alpha<\kappa}G_\alpha= \prod_{\alpha<\kappa}G_\alpha/\prod^<_{\alpha<\kappa}G_\alpha\) is characterized. More precisely, in Theorem 2.4 it is proved that if \(\kappa=\text{cf}(\kappa)\) and each factor \(G_\alpha\) is a torsion-free group of rank at most \(\lambda<\kappa\), the reduced product \(V^r=\prod^r_{\alpha<\kappa}G_\alpha\) is \(\aleph_1\)-free if and only if for all sets \(I\leq\kappa\) with cardinality \(\kappa\) the group \(\bigcap_{\alpha\in I}G_\alpha\) is \(\aleph_1\)-free (here each group \(G_\alpha\) is viewed as a subgroup of \(\mathbb{Q}^{(\lambda)}\)). As a consequence of this result, it is proved that if \(2^\lambda<\kappa=\text{cf}(\kappa)\), the reduced product \(V^r\) is \(\aleph_1\)-free if and only if the groups \(G_\alpha\) are \(\aleph_1\)-free for almost all \(\alpha<\kappa\). These results are used in the study of (reduced) vector groups, i.e. the particular case \(V=\prod_{\alpha<\kappa}G_\alpha\) and \(V^r=\prod^r_{\alpha<\kappa}G_\alpha\) when \(G_\alpha\leq\mathbb{Q}\) for all \(\alpha<\kappa\). In Theorem 3.3 it is proved that if \(\kappa\) is regular, the reduced vector group \(V^r\) is \(\aleph_1\)-free if and only if \(V^r\) is \(\mathbb{Z}\)-homogeneous, and this is equivalent to the fact that every element \(x\in V\) such that \(|\text{supp}(x)|=\kappa\) is of type \((0,\dots,0,\dots)\). Moreover, it is proved, using some interesting examples, that Theorem 3.3 cannot be generalized to arbitrarily reduced products (even if it admits some generalizations, see Example 3.4 and Theorem 3.7), and that the \(\mathbb{Z}\)-homogeneous property of \(V^r\) depends on the axioms of set theory (Examples 3.5 and 3.6). All these results are used to study the Chase radical \(\nu(G)=\bigcap_{\varphi\colon G\to X}^{X\text{ is }\aleph_1\text{-free}}\text{Ker}(\varphi)\). In particular, it is proved that the norm of \(\nu\) is \(\aleph_1\) in ZFC (Theorem 4.8), a result which was previously known only under the assumption of the continuum hypothesis.