FLATNESS AND THE RING OF QUASI-ENDOMORPHISMS

Abstract

This paper investigates torsion-free abelian groups A which are Q E-flat, i.e. for which Q A is flat as an Q E(A)-module. It is shown that a torsion-free A has this property iff Tor¹ (M, A) is torsion for all right E(A)-modules M. Furthermore, a torsion-free group of rank 4 is constructed which is Q E-flat but not quasi-isomorphic to an E-flat group. This gives a negative response to a question of R. Pierce. The paper concludes with a discussion of the structure of torsion-free groups of finite rank which are Q E-flat.