Projective bichains (Q451076)

A bisemilatice is algebra with two binary operations, \(+\) and \(\cdot\), that are commutative, associative and idempotent. Each bisemilattice determines and is determined by two semilattices. If each of these semilattices is a chain then a bisemilattice is called a bichain. If a bisemilattice satisfies the equation \(x\cdot(x+y)=x+(x\cdot y)\) it is called a Birkhoff system. The authors prove that a finite bichain is weakly projective in the variety of Birkhoff systems if and only if it does not contain a three-element bichain with elements \(a,b,c\) such that \(b\cdot c=b\), \(b+c=c\) and \(a\) is absorbing. They also present a recursive method to construct the \(n\)-element weakly projective bichains having some special properties.