Four concepts from “geometrical” stability theory in modules

Abstract

In [H1] Hrushovski introduced a number of ideas concerning the relations between types which have proved to be of importance in stability theory. These relations allow the geometries associated to various types to be connected. In this paper we consider the meaning of these concepts in modules (and more generally in abelian structures). In particular, we provide algebraic characterisations of notions such as hereditary orthogonality, “p -internal” and “p-simple”. These characterisations are in the same spirit as the algebraic characterisations of such concepts as orthogonality and regularity, that have already proved so useful. Of the concepts that we consider, p-simplicity is dealt with in [H3] and the other three concepts in [H2].The descriptions arose out of our desire to develop some intuition for these ideas. We think that our characterisations may well be useful in the same way to others, particularly since our examples are algebraically uncomplicated and so understanding them does not require expertise in the model theory of modules. Furthermore, in view of the increasing importance of these notions, the results themselves are likely to be directly useful in the model-theoretic study of modules and, via abelian structures, in more general stability-theoretic contexts. Finally, some of our characterisations suggest that these ideas may be relevant to the algebraic problem of understanding the structure of indecomposable injective modules.