One very particular example of a congruence-simple semiring. (Q1024266)

An additively commutative semiring \((S,+,\cdot)\) is called congruence-simple if it has exactly two congruences. It is known that such a congruence-simple semiring fits into one of the following five classes: (1) \((S,+)\) is idempotent, (2) \((S,+)\) is cancellative, (3) \(|S|=2\) and \(|S+S|=1=|SS|\), (4) \(|S+S|=1\) and \(SS=S\), and (5) \(S+S=S\) and \((S,+)\) is zeropotent, i.e., \(2s=3t\) for all \(s,t\in S\). But it was an open problem if the rather exotic class (5) is non-trivial. Starting from the free additively zeropotent semiring \((T,+,\cdot)\) generated by the two-element set \(\{a,b\}\), it is shown that the congruence \(\alpha\) on \(T\) generated by the pairs \((a,a^2b^2+a^2bab^2)\) and \((b,a^2babab)\) is proper. Hence \(R=T/\alpha\) has non-constant multiplication and satisfies \(R+R=R\). From this fact, the existence of a non-trivial semiring \(S\) in class (5) is derived.