English

Boolean Factor Congruences and Property (*)

Logic 2008-09-24 v1

Abstract

A variety V has Boolean factor congruences (BFC) if the set of factor congruences of every algebra in V is a distributive sublattice of its congruence lattice; this property holds in rings with unit and in every variety which has a semilattice operation. BFC has a prominent role in the study of uniqueness of direct product representations of algebras, since it is a strengthening of the refinement property. We provide an explicit Mal'cev condition for BFC. With the aid of this condition, it is shown that BFC is equivalent to a variant of the definability property (*), an open problem in R. Willard's work ("Varieties Having Boolean Factor Congruences," J. Algebra, 132 (1990)).

Cite

@article{arxiv.0809.3815,
  title  = {Boolean Factor Congruences and Property (*)},
  author = {Pedro Sánchez Terraf},
  journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:0809.3815},
  year   = {2008}
}
R2 v1 2026-06-21T11:23:00.790Z