A note on residually small varieties of semigroups (Q1073920)

This paper is a sequel to another paper by the author [ibid. 13, 171-201 (1981; Zbl 0475.20051)]. In that paper subdirectly irreducible semigroups with more than three elements generating residually small varieties were classified. The main result of this paper is the following theorem: Suppose that \({\mathcal G}\) is a variety of groups, \(\lambda\) is a cardinal number, and: (i) for every \(G\in {\mathcal G}\) every strictly meet irreducible element N of the lattice of normal subgroups of G satisfies \([G:N]<\lambda\); (ii) for every \(G\in {\mathcal G}\), every strictly meet irreducible element H of the lattice of all subgroups of G satisfies \([G:H]<\lambda\). Then every finite group in \({\mathcal G}\) is abelian. Although this appears to be a theorem about groups rather than semigroups it is, in fact, an integral part of the determination of all residually finite varieties of semigroups and has implications for residually small varieties that are not residually finite. Indeed, it answers four out of five questions that were raised in the aforementioned paper. The conclusion of the theorem gives added interest to the longstanding question as to whether there exists a nonabelian variety of groups all of whose finite groups are abelian; this appears as problem 5 in \textit{H. Neumann}'s book Varieties of groups (1967; Zbl 0251.20001).