Simply connected incidence algebras. (Q1402092)

The paper discusses the simply connectedness of incidence algebras. The strongly simply connectedness of such algebras has been characterized by P. Dräxler who showed that an incidence algebra is strongly simply connected if and only if it has no crowns. The paper under review gives conditions for a not strongly simply connected algebra to be simply connected. In order to give such conditions the authors introduce the notion of weak crown and complete crown. The main result of the paper is the following: Theorem. Let \(A\) be an incidence algebra which is not strongly simply connected. (i) If every weak crown in \(A\) is complete then \(A\) is simply connected. (ii) If \(A\) is simply connected, then there exists a complete crown in \(A\). (iii) \(A\) is simply connected if and only if every crown of \(A\) is homotopic to a complete crown.