Projective module


In mathematics, particularly in algebra, the class of projective modules enlarges the class of free modules over a ring, by keeping some of the main properties of free modules. Various equivalent characterizations of these modules appear below.
Every free module is a projective module, but the converse fails to hold over some rings, such as Dedekind rings. However, every projective module is a free module if the ring is a principal ideal domain such as the integers, or a polynomial ring.
Projective modules were first introduced in 1956 in the influential book Homological Algebra by Henri Cartan and Samuel Eilenberg.

Definitions

Lifting property

The usual category theoretical definition is in terms of the property of lifting that carries over from free to projective modules: a module P is projective if and only if for every surjective module homomorphism and every module homomorphism, there exists a module homomorphism such that.
The advantage of this definition of "projective" is that it can be carried out in categories more general than module categories: we don't need a notion of "free object". It can also be dualized, leading to injective modules. The lifting property may also be rephrased as every morphism from to factors through every epimorphism to . Thus, by definition, projective modules are precisely the projective objects in the category of R-modules.

Split-exact sequences

A module P is projective if and only if every short exact sequence of modules of the form
is a split exact sequence. That is, for every surjective module homomorphism there exists a section map, that is, a module homomorphism such that f h = idP. In that case, is a direct summand of B, h is an isomorphism from P to, and is a projection on the summand. Equivalently,

Direct summands of free modules

A module P is projective if and only if there is another module Q such that the direct sum of P and Q is a free module.

Exactness

An R-module P is projective if and only if the covariant functor is an exact functor, where R-Mod is the category of left R-modules and Ab is the category of abelian groups. When the ring R is commutative, Ab is advantageously replaced by R-Mod in the preceding characterization. This functor is always left exact, but, when P is projective, it is also right exact. This means that P is projective if and only if this functor preserves epimorphisms, or if it preserves finite colimits.

Dual basis

A module P is projective if and only if there exists a set and a set such that for every x in P, fi is only nonzero for finitely many i, and.

Elementary examples and properties

The following properties of projective modules are quickly deduced from any of the above definitions of projective modules:
The relation of projective modules to free and flat modules is subsumed in the following diagram of module properties:
The left-to-right implications are true over any ring, although some authors define torsion-free modules only over a domain. The right-to-left implications are true over the rings labeling them. There may be other rings over which they are true. For example, the implication labeled "local ring or PID" is also true for polynomial rings over a field: this is the Quillen–Suslin theorem.

Projective vs. free modules

Any free module is projective. The converse is true in the following cases:
In general though, projective modules need not be free:
The difference between free and projective modules is, in a sense, measured by the algebraic K-theory group K0, see below.

Projective vs. flat modules

Every projective module is flat. The converse is in general not true: the abelian group Q is a Z-module which is flat, but not projective.
Conversely, a finitely related flat module is projective.
and proved that a module M is flat if and only if it is a direct limit of finitely-generated free modules.
In general, the precise relation between flatness and projectivity was established by who showed that a module M is projective if and only if it satisfies the following conditions:
Submodules of projective modules need not be projective; a ring R for which every submodule of a projective left module is projective is called left hereditary.
Quotients of projective modules also need not be projective, for example Z/n is a quotient of Z, but not torsion free, hence not flat, and therefore not projective.
The category of finitely generated projective modules over a ring is an exact category..

Projective resolutions

Given a module, M, a projective resolution of M is an infinite exact sequence of modules
with all the Pis projective. Every module possesses a projective resolution. In fact a free resolution exists. The exact sequence of projective modules may sometimes be abbreviated to or. A classic example of a projective resolution is given by the Koszul complex of a regular sequence, which is a free resolution of the ideal generated by the sequence.
The length of a finite resolution is the subscript n such that Pn is nonzero and for i greater than n. If M admits a finite projective resolution, the minimal length among all finite projective resolutions of M is called its projective dimension and denoted pd. If M does not admit a finite projective resolution, then by convention the projective dimension is said to be infinite. As an example, consider a module M such that. In this situation, the exactness of the sequence 0 → P0 → M → 0 indicates that the arrow in the center is an isomorphism, and hence M itself is projective.

Projective modules over commutative rings

Projective modules over commutative rings have nice properties.
The localization of a projective module is a projective module over the localized ring.
A projective module over a local ring is free. Thus a projective module is locally free.
The converse is true for finitely generated modules over Noetherian rings: a finitely generated module over a commutative noetherian ring is locally free if and only if it is projective.
However, there are examples of finitely generated modules over a non-Noetherian ring which are locally free and not projective. For instance,
a Boolean ring has all of its localizations isomorphic to F2, the field of two elements, so any module over a Boolean ring is locally free, but
there are some non-projective modules over Boolean rings. One example is R/I where
R is a direct product of countably many copies of F2 and I is the direct sum of countably many copies of F2 inside of R.
The R-module R/I is locally free since R is Boolean, but R/I is not projective because
I is not a principal ideal.
However, it is true that for finitely presented modules M over a commutative ring R, the following are equivalent.
  1. is flat.
  2. is projective.
  3. is free as -module for every maximal ideal of R.
  4. is free as -module for every prime ideal of R.
  5. There exist generating the unit ideal such that is free as -module for each i.
  6. is a locally free sheaf on
Moreover, if R is a noetherian integral domain, then, by Nakayama's lemma, these conditions are equivalent to
Let A be a commutative ring. If B is a A-algebra that is a finitely generated projective A-module containing A as a subring, then A is a direct factor of B.

Rank

Let P be a finitely generated projective module over a commutative ring R and X be the spectrum of R. The rank of P at a prime ideal in X is the rank of the free -module. It is a locally constant function on X. In particular, if X is connected, then P has constant rank.

Vector bundles and locally free modules

A basic motivation of the theory is that projective modules are analogues of vector bundles. This can be made precise for the ring of continuous real-valued functions on a compact Hausdorff space, as well as for the ring of smooth functions on a smooth manifold.
Vector bundles are locally free. If there is some notion of "localization" which can be carried over to modules, such as the usual localization of a ring, one can define locally free modules, and the projective modules then typically coincide with the locally free modules.

Projective modules over a polynomial ring

The Quillen–Suslin theorem, which solves Serre's problem, is another deep result: if K is a field, or more generally a principal ideal domain, and is a polynomial ring over K, then every projective module over R is free.
This problem was first raised by Serre with K a field. Bass settled it for non-finitely generated modules and Quillen and Suslin independently and simultaneously treated the case of finitely generated modules.
Since every projective module over a principal ideal domain is free, one might ask this question: if R is a commutative ring such that every projective R-module is free, then is every projective R-module free? The answer is no. A counterexample occurs with R equal to the local ring of the curve at the origin. Thus the Quillen-Suslin theorem could never be proved by a simple induction on the number of variables.