Natural classes, left exact preradicals, and flat epimorphisms

Abstract

We define a function between the lattice of left exact preradicals in R-mod and the complete boolean lattice R-nat of natural classes in R-mod in such a way that the image of this function results to be a complete sublattice of R-nat. The image of this function is R-nat if and only if R is left semiartinian. We prove that every flat ring epimorphism from R to S induces a function between the lattice of left exact preradicals in R-mod and the lattice of left exact preradicals in S-mod. In this context, we obtain a lattice decomposition of S-nat for each left exact preradical.