On Projective and Flat Persistence Modules

Abstract

In recent years, persistence modules have been viewed as graded modules with gradation over a preordered set serving as the indexing set. We provide sufficient criteria for a projective module over a PID to be free when the indexing set is a lattice. With a lattice as the indexing set, we obtain criteria ensuring that a given persistence module is not projective. When the indexing set is a preordered set, we establish the flatness of a well-known family of persistence modules. We end the article with two algorithms to compute a basis of free persistence modules with indexing sets $\mathbb{Z}$ and $\mathbb{Z}^2$.