Paper 4, Section II, 11G

Groups, Rings and Modules
Part IB, 2013

Let RR be an integral domain, and MM be a finitely generated RR-module.

(i) Let SS be a finite subset of MM which generates MM as an RR-module. Let TT be a maximal linearly independent subset of SS, and let NN be the RR-submodule of MM generated by TT. Show that there exists a non-zero rRr \in R such that rxNr x \in N for every xMx \in M.

(ii) Now assume MM is torsion-free, i.e. rx=0r x=0 for rRr \in R and xMx \in M implies r=0r=0 or x=0x=0. By considering the map MNM \rightarrow N mapping xx to rxr x for rr as in (i), show that every torsion-free finitely generated RR-module is isomorphic to an RR-submodule of a finitely generated free RR-module.