In mathematics, a locally cyclic group is a group (''G'', *) in which every finitely generated subgroup is

cyclic Cycle, cycles, or cyclic may refer to: Anthropology and social sciences * Cyclic history, a theory of history * Cyclical theory, a theory of American political history associated with Arthur Schlesinger, Sr. * Social cycle, various cycles in s ...

Some facts

* Every cyclic group is locally cyclic, and every locally cyclic group is abelian. * Every finitely-generated locally cyclic group is cyclic. * Every

subgroup In group theory, a branch of mathematics, given a group ''G'' under a binary operation ∗, a subset ''H'' of ''G'' is called a subgroup of ''G'' if ''H'' also forms a group under the operation ∗. More precisely, ''H'' is a subgroup ...

and quotient group of a locally cyclic group is locally cyclic. * Every homomorphic image of a locally cyclic group is locally cyclic. * A group is locally cyclic if and only if every pair of elements in the group generates a cyclic group. * A group is locally cyclic if and only if its

lattice of subgroups In mathematics, the lattice of subgroups of a group G is the lattice whose elements are the subgroups of G, with the partial order relation being set inclusion. In this lattice, the join of two subgroups is the subgroup generated by their uni ...

is distributive . * The

torsion-free rank In mathematics, the rank, Prüfer rank, or torsion-free rank of an abelian group ''A'' is the cardinality of a maximal linearly independent subset. The rank of ''A'' determines the size of the largest free abelian group contained in ''A''. If ''A' ...

of a locally cyclic group is 0 or 1. * The

endomorphism ring In mathematics, the endomorphisms of an abelian group ''X'' form a ring. This ring is called the endomorphism ring of ''X'', denoted by End(''X''); the set of all homomorphisms of ''X'' into itself. Addition of endomorphisms arises naturally in a ...

of a locally cyclic group is

commutative In mathematics, a binary operation is commutative if changing the order of the operands does not change the result. It is a fundamental property of many binary operations, and many mathematical proofs depend on it. Most familiar as the name of ...

Examples of locally cyclic groups that are not cyclic

Examples of abelian groups that are not locally cyclic

* The additive group of

real number In mathematics, a real number is a number that can be used to measure a ''continuous'' one-dimensional quantity such as a distance, duration or temperature. Here, ''continuous'' means that values can have arbitrarily small variations. Every ...

s (R, +); the subgroup generated by 1 and (comprising all numbers of the form ''a'' + ''b'') is isomorphic to the direct sum Z + Z, which is not cyclic.

References

*. *. * {{Refend Abelian group theory Properties of groups