arXiv subjects
Publications and source records attributed to Pedro Sánchez Terraf.
A variety V has definable factor congruences if and only if factor congruences can be defined by a first-order formula Phi having central elements as parameters. We prove that if Phi can be chosen to be existential, factor congruences in every algebra of V are compact.
We study varieties with a term-definable poset structure, "po-groupoids". It is known that connected posets have the "strict refinement property" (SRP). In [arXiv:0808.1860v1 [math.LO]] it is proved that semidegenerate varieties with the SRP have definable factor congruences and if the similarity type is finite, directly indecomposables are axiomatizable by a set of first-order sentences. We obtain such a set for semidegenerate varieties of connected po-groupoids and show its quantifier complexity is bounded in general.
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)).
We study direct product representations of algebras in varieties. We collect several conditions expressing that these representations are "definable" in a first-order-logic sense, among them the concept of Definable Factor Congruences (DFC). The main results are that DFC is a Mal'cev property and that it is equivalent to all other conditions formulated; in particular we prove that V has DFC if and only if V has 0&1 and Boolean Factor Congruences. We also obtain an explicit first order definition of the kernel of the canonical projections via the terms associated to the Mal'cev condition for DFC, in such a manner it is preserved by taking direct products and direct factors. The main tool is the use of "central elements," which are a generalization of both central idempotent elements in rings with identity and neutral complemented elements in a bounded lattice.