The Splitting Problem for Coalgebras: A Direct Approach

In this note we give a new and elementary proof of a result of Năstăsescu and Torrecillas (J. Algebra, 281:144–149, 2004) stating that a coalgebra C is finite dimensional if and only if the rational part of any right module M over the dual algebra is a direct summand in M (the splitting problem for coalgebras). Research supported by a CNCSIS BD-type grant, and by the bilateral project BWS04/04 “New Techniques in Hopf Algebra Theory and Graded Ring Theory” of the Flemish and Romanian governments.