On the existence of unimodular elements and cancellation of projective modules over noetherian and non-noetherian rings

Abstract

Let $R$ be a commutative ring of dimension $d$, $S = R[X]$ or $R[X, 1/X]$ and $P$ a finitely generated projective $S$ module of rank $r$. Then $P$ is cancellative if $P$ has a unimodular element and $r \geq d + 1$. Moreover if $r \geq \dim (S)$ then $P$ has a unimodular element and therefore $P$ is cancellative. As an application we have proved that if $R$ is a ring of dimension $d$ of finite type over a Prüfer domain and $P$ is a projective $R[X]$ or $R[X, 1/X]$ module of rank at least $d + 1$, then $P$ has a unimodular element and is cancellative.