In abstract algebra, an abelian group is called finitely generated if there exist finitely many elements x1,..., xs in G such that every x in G can be written in the form with integersn1,..., ns. In this case, we say that the set is a generating set of G or that x1,..., xsgenerateG. Every finite abelian group is finitely generated. The finitely generated abelian groups can be completely classified.
Examples
The integers,, are a finitely generated abelian group.
The integers modulo,, are a finite abelian group.
Any direct sum of finitely many finitely generated abelian groups is again a finitely generated abelian group.
There are no other examples. In particular, the group of rational numbers is not finitely generated: if are rational numbers, pick a natural numbercoprime to all the denominators; then cannot be generated by. The group of non-zero rational numbers is also not finitely generated. The groups of real numbers under addition and non-zero real numbers under multiplication are also not finitely generated.
The primary decomposition formulation states that every finitely generated abelian group G is isomorphic to a direct sum of primary cyclic groups and infinite cyclic groups. A primary cyclic group is one whose order is a power of a prime. That is, every finitely generated abelian group is isomorphic to a group of the form where n ≥ 0 is the rank, and the numbers q1,..., qt are powers of prime numbers. In particular, G is finite if and only ifn = 0. The values of n, q1,..., qt are uniquely determined by G, that is, there is one and only one way to represent G as such a decomposition.
We can also write any finitely generated abelian group G as a direct sum of the form where k1dividesk2, which divides k3 and so on up toku. Again, the rank n and the invariant factorsk1,..., ku are uniquely determined by G. The rank and the sequence of invariant factors determine the group up to isomorphism.
Equivalence
These statements are equivalent as a result of the Chinese remainder theorem, which implies that if and only if j and k are coprime.
History
The history and credit for the fundamental theorem is complicated by the fact that it was proven when group theory was not well-established, and thus early forms, while essentially the modern result and proof, are often stated for a specific case. Briefly, an early form of the finite case was proven in, the finite case was proven in, and stated in group-theoretic terms in. The finitely presented case is solved by Smith normal form, and hence frequently credited to, though the finitely generated case is sometimes instead credited to ; details follow. Group theorist László Fuchs states: The fundamental theorem for finite abelian groups was proven by Leopold Kronecker in, using a group-theoretic proof, though without stating it in group-theoretic terms; a modern presentation of Kronecker's proof is given in, 5.2.2 Kronecker's Theorem, . This generalized an earlier result of Carl Friedrich Gauss from Disquisitiones Arithmeticae, which classified quadratic forms; Kronecker cited this result of Gauss's. The theorem was stated and proved in the language of groups by Ferdinand Georg Frobenius and Ludwig Stickelberger in 1878. Another group-theoretic formulation was given by Kronecker's student Eugen Netto in 1882. The fundamental theorem for finitely presented abelian groups was proven by Henry John Stephen Smith in, as integer matrices correspond to finite presentations of abelian groups, and Smith normal form corresponds to classifying finitely presented abelian groups. The fundamental theorem for finitely generated abelian groups was proven by Henri Poincaré in, using a matrix proof. This was done in the context of computing the homology of a complex, specifically the Betti number and torsion coefficients of a dimension of the complex, where the Betti number corresponds to the rank of the free part, and the torsion coefficients correspond to the torsion part. Kronecker's proof was generalized to finitely generated abelian groups by Emmy Noether in.
Corollaries
Stated differently the fundamental theorem says that a finitely generated abelian group is the direct sum of a free abelian group of finite rank and a finite abelian group, each of those being unique up to isomorphism. The finite abelian group is just the torsion subgroup of G. The rank of G is defined as the rank of the torsion-free part of G; this is just the number n in the above formulas. A corollary to the fundamental theorem is that every finitely generated torsion-free abelian group is free abelian. The finitely generated condition is essential here: is torsion-free but not free abelian. Every subgroup and factor group of a finitely generated abelian group is again finitely generated abelian. The finitely generated abelian groups, together with the group homomorphisms, form an abelian category which is a Serre subcategory of the category of abelian groups.
Non-finitely generated abelian groups
Note that not every abelian group of finite rank is finitely generated; the rank 1 group is one counterexample, and the rank-0 group given by a direct sum of countably infinitely many copies of is another one.
