L. Fuchs poses the
problem of characterizing the subgroups of arbitrary abelian groups which are
intersections of finitely many pure subgroups. We show that this problem for
purifiable subgroups of primary abelian groups can be reduced to the case
where the subgroups are vertical. We use this result to give a solution of
this problem for subgroups of primary abelian groups in two special cases.
Moreover, we obtain the following result: in a primary abelian group G, all
pure hulls of a purifiable subgroup are T-high in G for some subsocle T of
G.