Cellular covers of ℵ1-free abelian groups

Abstract

In this paper, we first show that for every natural number n and every countable reduced cotorsion-free group K there is a short exact sequence [Formula: see text] such that the map G → H is a cellular cover over H and the rank of H is exactly n. In particular, the free abelian group of infinite countable rank is the kernel of a cellular exact sequence of co-rank 2 which answers an open problem from Rodríguez–Strüngmann [J. L. Rodríguez and L. Strüngmann, Mediterr. J. Math.6 (2010) 139–150]. Moreover, we give a new method to construct cellular exact sequences with prescribed torsion free kernels and cokernels. In particular we apply this method to the class of ℵ1-free abelian groups in order to complement results from the cited work and Göbel–Rodríguez–Strüngmann [R. Göbel, J. L. Rodríguez and L. Strüngmann, Fund. Math.217 (2012) 211–231].