When mutually subisomorphic Baer modules are isomorphic

Abstract

The Schröder-Bernstein Theorem for sets is well known. The question of whether two subisomorphic algebraic structures are isomorphic to each other, is of interest. An $R$-module $M$ is said to satisfy the Schröder-Bernstein (or SB) property if any pair of direct summands of $M$ are isomorphic provided that each one is isomorphic to a direct summand of the other. A ring $R$ (with an involution $\star$) is called a Baer (Baer $\star$-)ring if the right annihilator of every nonempty subset of $R$ is generated by an idempotent (a projection). It is clear that every Baer $\star$-ring is a Baer ring. Kaplansky showed that Baer $\star$-rings satisfy the SB property. This motivated us to investigate whether any Baer ring satisfies the SB property. In this paper we carry out a study of this question and investigate when two subisomorphic Baer modules are isomorphic. Besides, we study extending modules which satisfy the SB property. We characterize a commutative domain $R$ over which any pair of subisomorphic extending modules are isomorphic.