A note on PI incidence algebras (Q1806247)

Incidence algebras of locally finite posets are usually interpreted as analogs of upper triangular matrix algebras whose dimension may be controlled by the lengths of maximal chains in the posets. If the largest such length is \(n\), then the incidence algebra satisfies an identity of degree \(2n\), and as the author shows, of length \(2^n\), which is minimal and a great improvement on the standard identity obtained from the Amitsur-Levitzki-Theorem, which is of length \((2n)!\). It is shown how the collection of all linear homogeneous polynomial identities can be viewed as a free module over the coefficient ring (commutative with 1) of the incidence algebra with a basis of cardinal \((2n)!/2^n\), generated by the minimal polynomial constructed above and a representative set of permutations.