Related papers: New non-free Whitehead groups (corrected version)

The connections between Whitehead groups and uniformization properties were investigated by the third author in [Sh:98]. In particular it was essentially shown there that there is a non-free Whitehead (respectively, aleph_1-coseparable)…

We give a combinatorial equivalent to the existence of a non-free hereditarily separable group of cardinality aleph_1. This can be used, together with a known combinatorial equivalent of the existence of a non-free Whitehead group, to prove…

We show that it is consistent with ordinary set theory ZFC and the generalized continuum hypothesis that there exist two separable abelian groups of cardinality aleph_1 which are filtration equivalent and one is a Whitehead group but the…

An abelian group is said to be aleph_1-free if all its countable subgroups are free. Our main result is: If R is a ring with R^+ free and |R|<lambda <= 2^{aleph_0}, then there exists an aleph_1-free abelian group G of cardinality lambda…

It is proved consistent with either CH or the negation of CH that there is an aleph_1-separable group of cardinality aleph_1 which does not have a coherent system of projections. It had previously been shown that it is consistent with not…

For a given stationary set $S$ of countable ordinals we prove (in $\mathbf{ZFC}$) that the assertion "every $S$-ladder system has $\aleph_0$-uniformization" is equivalent to "every strongly $\aleph_1$-free abelian group of cardinality…

Assume G.C.H. and kappa is the first uncountable cardinal such that there is a kappa-free abelian group which is not a Whitehead (abelian) group. We prove that kappa is necessarily an inaccessible cardinal

We investigate the Whiteheadness of Borel abelian groups (aleph_1-free, wlog, as otherwise this is trivial). We show that CH (and even WCH) implies any such abelian group is free, and always aleph_2-free.

We show that if 2^{aleph_0} Cohen reals are added to the universe, then for every reduced non-free torsion-free abelian group A of cardinality less than the continuum, there is a prime p so that Ext_p(A, Z) not= 0. In particular if it is…

An uncountable $\aleph_1$-free group cannot admit a Polish group topology but an uncountable $\aleph_1$-free abelian group can, as witnessed, for example, by the Baer-Specker group $\mathbb{Z}^\omega$; more strongly, $\mathbb{Z}^\omega$ is…

As a consequence of identifying the principle described in the title, we prove that for any uncountable cardinal lambda, if there is a lambda-free Whitehead group of cardinality lambda which is not free, then there are many ``nice''…

In this short note we show that if lambda>aleph_1 is regular and lambda is not the successor of a singular cardinal of cofinality aleph_0, and G is a lambda-free abelian group of size lambda, then there is a free group G' subseteq G of size…

We prove in ZFC that the Baer-Specker group Z^omega has 2^{aleph_1} non-free pure subgroups of cardinality aleph_1 which are almost disjoint: there is no non-free subgroup embeddable in any pair.

We answer a long-standing open question by proving in ordinary set theory, ZFC, that the Kaplansky test problems have negative answers for aleph_1-separable abelian groups of cardinality aleph_1. In fact, there is an aleph_1-separable…

We prove new separability results about free groups. Namely, if $H_1, \ldots , H_k$ are infinite index, finitely generated subgroups of a non-abelian free group $F$, then there exists a homomorphism onto some alternating group $f:F…

We begin with the existence of groups with trivial duals for cardinals aleph_n (n in omega). Then we derive results about strongly aleph_n-free abelian groups of cardinality aleph_n (n in omega) with prescribed free, countable endomorphism…

Let \lambda be a cardinal with \lambda=\lambda^{\aleph_0} and p be either 0 or a prime number. We show that there are fields K_0 and K_1 of cardinality \lambda and characteristic p such that the automorphism group of K_0 is a free group of…

We prove that groups for which every countable subgroup is free ($\aleph_1$-free groups) are n-slender, cm-slender, and lcH-slender. In particular every homomorphism from a completely metrizable group to an $\aleph_1$-free group has an open…

We give a new proof that there are arbitrarily large indecomposable abelian groups; moreover, the groups constructed are absolutely indecomposable, that is, they remain indecomposable in any generic extension. However, any absolutely rigid…

Given an aleph_1-free abelian group G we characterize the class C_G of all torsion abelian groups T satisfying Ext(G,T)=0 assuming the continuum hypothesis CH. Moreover, in Godel's constructable universe we prove that this characterizes C_G…