Abelian Root Group

Abelian Root Group

If G is an abelian group and P is a set of primes then G is an abelian P-root group if every element in G has a pth root for every prime p in P:

(with the product written multiplicatively)

If the set of primes P has only one element p, for convenience we can say G is an abelian p-root group. In a p-root group, the cardinality of the set of pth roots is the same for all elements. For any set of primes P, being a P-root group is the same as being a p-root group for every p in P.

For any specific set of primes P, the class of abelian P-root groups with abelian group homomorphisms forms a full subcategory of the category of abelian groups, but not a Serre subcategory (as the quotient of an epimorphism is an abelian group, but not necessarily an abelian P-root group). If the set of primes P is empty, the category is simply the whole category of abelian groups.

If the roots are all unique, we call G an abelian unique P-root group.

If G is an abelian unique P-root group and S is a subset of G, the abelian unique P-root subgroup generated by S is the smallest subgroup of G that contains S and is an abelian P-root group.

If G is an abelian unique P-root group generated by a set of its elements on which there are no non-trivial relations, we say G is a free abelian unique P-root group. For any particular set of primes P, two such groups are isomorphic if the cardinality of the sets of generators is the same.

An abelian P-root group can be described by an abelian P-root group presentation:

in a similar way to those for abelian groups. However, in this case it is understood to mean a quotient of a free abelian unique P-root group rather than a free abelian group, which only coincides with the meaning for an abelian group presentation when the set P is empty.