Homomorphisms on infinite direct products of groups, rings and monoids

We study properties of a group, abelian group, ring, or monoid $B$ which (a) guarantee that every homomorphism from an infinite direct product $\prod_I A_i$ of objects of the same sort onto $B$ factors through the direct product of finitely many ultraproducts of the $A_i$ (possibly after composition with the natural map $B\to B/Z(B)$ or some variant), and/or (b) guarantee that when a map does so factor (and the index set has reasonable cardinality), the ultrafilters involved must be principal. A number of open questions, and topics for further investigation, are noted.Comment: 26 pages. Copy at http://math.berkeley.edu/~gbergman/papers may be updated more frequently than arXiv copy. Version 2 has minor revisions in wording etc. from version

Families of ultrafilters, and homomorphisms on infinite direct product algebras

Criteria are obtained for a filter F of subsets of a set I to be an intersection of finitely many ultrafilters, respectively, finitely many κ-complete ultrafilters for a given uncountable cardinal κ. From these, general results are deduced concerning homomorphisms on infinite direct product groups, which yield quick proofs of some results in the literature: the Łoś–Eda theorem (characterizing homomorphisms from a not-necessarily-countable direct product of modules to a slender module), and some results of Nahlus and the author on homomorphisms on infinite direct products of not-necessarily-associative k-algebras. The same tools allow other results of Nahlus and the author to be nontrivially strengthened, and yield an analog to one of their results, with nonabelian groups taking the place of k-algebras. We briefly examine the question of how the common technique used in applying the general results of this note to k-algebras on the one hand, and to nonabelian groups on the other, might be extended to more general varieties of algebras in the sense of universal algebra. In a final section, the Erd˝os–Kaplansky theorem on dimensions of vector spaces DI (D a division ring) is extended to reduced products DI /F, and an application is noted

Families of ultrafilters, and homomorphisms on infinite direct product algebras

Criteria are obtained for a filter F of subsets of a set I to be an intersection of finitely many ultrafilters, respectively, finitely many κ-complete ultrafilters for a given uncountable cardinal κ. From these, general results are deduced concerning homomorphisms on infinite direct product groups, which yield quick proofs of some results in the literature: the Łoś–Eda theorem (characterizing homomorphisms from a not-necessarily-countable direct product of modules to a slender module), and some results of Nahlus and the author on homomorphisms on infinite direct products of not-necessarily-associative k-algebras. The same tools allow other results of Nahlus and the author to be nontrivially strengthened, and yield an analog to one of their results, with nonabelian groups taking the place of k-algebras. We briefly examine the question of how the common technique used in applying the general results of this note to k-algebras on the one hand, and to nonabelian groups on the other, might be extended to more general varieties of algebras in the sense of universal algebra. In a final section, the Erd˝os–Kaplansky theorem on dimensions of vector spaces DI (D a division ring) is extended to reduced products DI /F, and an application is noted

FAMILIES OF ULTRAFILTERS, AND HOMOMORPHISMS ON INFINITE DIRECT PRODUCT ALGEBRAS

Criteria are obtained for a filter F of subsets of a set I to be an intersection of finitely many ultrafilters, respectively, finitely many \kappa-complete ultrafilters for a given uncountable cardinal \kappa. From these, general results are deduced concerning homomorphisms on infinite direct product groups, which yield quick proofs of some results in the literature: the {\L}o\'{s}-Eda theorem (characterizing homomorphisms from a not-necessarily-countable direct product of modules to a slender module), and some results of N. Nahlus and the author on homomorphisms on infinite direct products of not-necessarily-associative k-algebras. The same tools allow other results of Nahlus and the author to be nontrivially strengthened, and yield an analog to one of their results, with nonabelian groups taking the place of k-algebras. We briefly examine the question of how the common technique used in applying the general results of this note to k-algebras on the one hand, and to nonabelian groups on the other, might be extended to more general varieties of algebras in the sense of universal algebra. In a final section, the Erd\H{o}s-Kaplansky Theorem on dimensions of vector spaces D^I (D a division ring) is extended to reduced products D^I/F, and an application is noted.Comment: 12 pages. Copy at http://math.berkeley.edu/~gbergman/papers may be updated more frequently than arXiv cop