Epicomplete completely-distributive \(\ell\)-groups (Q1074610)

An \(\ell\)-group (lattice-ordered group) is completely-distributive if whenever \(\bigvee_{i\in I}\bigwedge_{j\in J}g_{ij}\) and \(\bigwedge_{f\in I_ J}\bigvee_{i\in I}g_{i,f(i)}\) both exist, they must be equal. An object A in a concrete category is equicomplete if every epimorphism mapping A into other objects must be a surjection. Pedersen initiated the study of epicomplete objects in the category \({\mathbb{L}}\) of abelian \(\ell\)-groups. He defined an a-epimorphism to be an \(\ell\)-homomorphism which is also an epimorphism in the category of torsion-free abelian groups. Anderson and Conrad showed that every epimorphism in \({\mathbb{L}}\) is an a-epimorphism and that the epicomplete objects in \({\mathbb{L}}\) are the divisible \(\ell\)-groups. In \({\mathbb{C}}\) the category of abelian \(\ell\)-groups and complete \(\ell\)-homomorphisms they also proved that an equicomplete object is latterally complete and that finite-valued epicomplete objects must be V(\(\Gamma\),\({\mathbb{R}})\) for some root system \(\Gamma\). In this paper, the results listed above are extended. The author shows that completely-distributive epicomplete objects in \({\mathbb{C}}\) are V(\(\Gamma\),\({\mathbb{R}})\) for root systems \(\Gamma\). Restricting to a new category \({\mathbb{D}}\) of completely-distributive abelian \(\ell\)-groups with complete \(\ell\)-homomorphisms a converse is also true, so that the only equicomplete objects in \({\mathbb{D}}\) are the V(\(\Gamma\),\({\mathbb{R}})\)-groups.