Exactness of completion of topological abelian groups

400 Views Asked by At

Let $0\to G^{\prime}\to G\to G^{\prime\prime}\to 0$ be an exact sequence of abelian groups. Suppose $G$ is a topological group and then give topologies on $G^{\prime}$ and $G^{\prime\prime}$ which are induced by the topology on $G$. If $H$ is topological abelian group, $\widehat{H}$ denotes its completion using Cauchy sequences.

Is the sequence of completions $0\to \widehat{G^{\prime}}\to \widehat{G}\to \widehat{G^{\prime\prime}}\to 0$ still exact as abelian groups?

For a topological abelian group $G$ with filtration of subgroups $G=G_0\supseteq G_1\supseteq G_2\supseteq\cdots\supseteq G_n\supseteq \cdots$, if $\{G_n\}$ is a basic system of neighborhoods of $0$, then from Corollary 10.3 of Atiyah's Introduction to Commutative Algebra, we know that the above sequence of completions is exact. So in general if the topology on $G$ is not so good we don't have exactness of taking completion, and there will exist many counterexamples, right? Could you provide an easy counterexample or some references?

Thanks!

1

There are 1 best solutions below

2
On

Here is an easy counterexample. The injective morphism $\mathbb{Z}\hookrightarrow \mathbb{Q}$ does not remain injective after, say, taking $p$-adic completions. In general, the completion functor for $R$-modules is neither left-exact nor right-exact, and need not be exact in the middle as well. It is only true that the completion functor preserves surjections. For more details see for example here.