Modules with Finitely Many Submodules

Abstract

In this paper, we study modules having only finitely many submodules over any ring which is not necessarily commutative. We try to understand how such a module decomposes as a direct sum. We justify that any module V having only finitely many submodules over any ring A is an extension of a cyclic A-module by a finite A-module. Under some assumptions on A, such as commutativity of A, we prove that an A-module V has finitely many submodules if and only if V can be written as a direct sum of a cyclic A-module having only finitely many A-submodules and a finite A-module.