Published online by Cambridge University Press: 09 April 2009
A module is uniserial if its lattice of submodules is linearly ordered, and a ring R is left serial if R is a direct sum of uniserial left ideals. The following problem is considered. Suppose the injective hull of each simple left R-module is uniserial. When does this imply that the indecomposable injective left R-modules are uniserial? An affirmative answer is known when R is commutative and when R is Artinian. The following result is proved.
Let R be a left serial ring and suppose that for each primitive idempotent e, eRe has indecomposable injective left modules uniserial. The following conditions are equivalent. (a) The injective hull of each simple left R-module is uniserial. (b) Every indecomposable injective left R-module is univerial. (c) Every finitely generated left R-module is serial.
The rest of the paper is devoted to a study of some non-Artinian serial rings which serve to illustrate this theorem.