A combinatorial principle and endomorphism rings I: Onp-groups

Two lines of research are involved here. One is a combinatorial principle, proved in ZFC for many cardinals (e.g., any λ = λ^ℵ ₀) enabling us to prove things which have been proven using the diamond or for strong limit cardinals of uncountable cofinality. The other direction is building abelian groups with few endomorphisms and/or prescribed rings of endomorphisms. We prove that for a ringR, whose additive group is thep-adic completion of a freep-adic module,R is isomorphic to the endomorphism ring of some separable abelianp-groupG divided by the ideal of small endomorphisms, withG of power λ for any λ = λ^ℵ ₀≧|R|. Dedicated to the memory of Abraham Robinson on the tenth anniversary of his death The author would like to thank the United States-Israel Binational Science Foundation for partially supporting this research.