On identity bases of epigroup varieties (Q1818860)

If \(W\) is a word over the alphabet \(\{x_1,x_1^{-1},\ldots,x_m,x_m^{-1}\}\) and \(\lambda\in\{1,\ldots,m\}\), let \(\sigma_\lambda(W)\) denote the sum of exponents of \(x_\lambda\) in \(W\). The authors modify the main construction from \textit{A.~Yu.~Ol'shanskij}'s book [Geometry of defining relations in groups, Kluwer Academic Publishers (1991; Zbl 0732.20019)] to build, given any odd \(n>10^{10}\), any divisor \(q>1\) of \(n\) and any \(m>1\), a group \(G=\langle x_1,\ldots,x_m\rangle\) satisfying the law \(x^{nq}=1\) and such that in \(G\) \((x_1\cdots x_m)^n\neq 1\) but \(W^n=1\) for each word \(W\) over \(\{x_1,x_1^{-1},\ldots,x_m,x_m^{-1}\}\) verifying \(\sigma_\lambda(W)=0\) for some \(\lambda\in\{1,\ldots,m\}\) (Corollary 2.3). This allows to produce several examples of epigroup varieties with no finite identity basis. For instance, for \(n\) and \(q\) as above and for any positive integers \(t,\ell\) such that \(\ell\) is not a multiple of \(q\) no epigroup variety between the variety of all periodic completely simple semigroups with period \(nq\) whose self-conjugate core has period \(n\) and the variety of all epigroups of index \(t\) whose core has period \(n\ell\) has a finite identity basis (Theorem 3.1). The construction also applies to show that certain e-varieties of \(E\)-solid semigroups have no finite bi-identity basis. In the case when \(n\) is even (more precisely, when \(2^9\mid n\) and \(n>2^{45}\)), similar though somewhat weaker results are extracted from \textit{S.~V.~Ivanov}'s presentation of free Burnside groups of even exponent [Int. J. Algebra Comput. 4, No. 1-2, 1-308 (1994; Zbl 0822.20044)].