Module Theory : Endomorphism rings and direct sum decompositions in some classes of modules

This book presents topics in module theory and ring theory: some, such as Goldie dimension and semiperfect rings are now considered classical and others more specialized, such as dual Goldie dimension, semilocal endomorphism rings, serial rings and modules.

Thisexpositorymonographwaswrittenforthreereasons. Firstly,wewantedto present the solution to a problem posed by Wolfgang Krull in 1932 [Krull 32]. He asked whether what we now call the "Krull-SchmidtTheorem" holds for - tinianmodules. Theproblemremainedopenfor63years:itssolution,anegative answer to Krull''s question, was published only in 1995 (see [Facchini, Herbera, Levy and Vamos]). ´ Secondly, we wanted to present the answer to a question posed by War?eld in 1975 [War?eld 75]. He proved that every ?nitely p- sented module over a serial ring is a direct sum of uniserial modules, and asked if such a decomposition was unique. In other words, War?eld asked whether the "Krull-Schmidt Theorem" holds for serial modules. The solution to this problem, a negative answer again, appeared in [Facchini 96]. Thirdly, the - lution to War?eld''s problem shows interesting behavior, a rare phenomenon in the history of Krull-Schmidt type theorems. Essentially, the Krull-Schmidt Theorem holds for some classes of modules and not for others. When it does hold, any two indecomposable decompositions are uniquely determined up to a permutation, and when it does not hold for a class of modules, this is proved via an example. For serial modules the Krull-Schmidt Theorem does not hold, but any two indecomposable decompositions are uniquely determined up to two permutations. We wanted to present such a phenomenon to a wider ma- ematical audience.