Almost distributive lattice varieties (Q1080444)

For any two elements x, y of a lattice let xy denote the meet and \(x+y\) the join of these elements. A lattice L is said to be (i) semidistributive if for all u,v,x,y,z\(\in L\), \(u=xy=xz\) implies \(u=x(y+z)\) and \(v=x+y=x+z\) implies \(v=x+yz\); (ii) near-distributive if it satisfies the identities \(x(y+z)=x(y+x(z+xy))\) and \(x+yz=x+y(x+z(x+y))\); (iii) almost distributive if it is near-distributive and all u,v,x,y,z\(\in L\) satisfy the inequality \(v(u+x(y+xz))\leq u+x(y+xz)(v+xy+xz)\) as well as its dual. For a lattice L and an \(e\in L\) let L[e] denote the lattice which can be derived from L by substituting a two-element chain for e. \(L_ 1,L_ 2,...,L_{12}\) are finite lattices given by diagrams. Main results: 1. A lattice is near-distributive if and only if it is semidistributive and contains neither \(L_{11}\) nor \(L_{12}\) as sublattices. 2. A lattice is almost distributive if and only if it is semidistributive and contains none of \(L_ 6,L_ 7,...,L_{12}\) as sublattices. 3. For a finite distributive lattice D and \(d\in D\), the lattice D[d] is subdirectly irreducible if and only if the sublattice generated by \(\{\) \(x\in D\); \(xd\prec d\prec x+d\}\cup \{d\}\) is equal to D itself (a\(\prec b\) means: a is covered by b). 4. Every almost distributive lattice variety of finite height has only finitely many covers in the lattice of all lattice varieties; more specially, every join irreducible almost distributive lattice variety of finite height greater than 2 has at most one join irreducible cover. Moreover, there is given an almost distributive lattice variety with infinitely many covers (resp. dual covers) and there is given an infinite descending chain of almost distributive lattice varieties.