Proper congruence-preserving extensions of lattices (Q1977419)

A lattice \(K\) is a congruence-preserving extension of a lattice \(L\), if \(K\) is an extension and every congruence of \(L\) has exactly one extension to \(K\). Then the congruence lattice of \(L\) is isomorphic to the congruence lattice of \(K\). The extension is called proper if \(K\) properly contains \(L\), that is, \(K-L\neq\emptyset\). \textit{G. Grätzer} and \textit{E. T. Schmidt} [Acta Math. Hung. 66, 275-288 (1995; Zbl 0842.06008)] pointed out that if there exists a distributive interval with more than one element in \(L\), then \(L\) has a proper congruence-preserving extension \(K\). Generalizing this result, in this paper, the authors prove: Every lattice \(L\) with more than one element has a proper congruence-preserving extension \(K\). The proof of this theorem is based on a construction of \textit{E. T. Schmidt} [Publ. Math. Debrecen 9, 243-256 (1962; Zbl 0178.33902)]. For a lattice \(L\), let us call the triple \(\langle x,y,z\rangle \in L^3\) Boolean, if \[ \begin{alignedat}{1} x&=(x\lor y)\land (x\lor z), \\ y&=(y\lor x)\land (y\lor z), \tag{B}\\ z &= (z\lor x)\land (z\lor y). \end{alignedat} \] Let \(M_3\langle L\rangle\subseteq L^3\) denote the poset of Boolean triples of \(L\). Then \(M_3\langle L\rangle\) is a lattice. If \(c\) is an element of \(L\), then the subposet \(\{\langle x,x\land c,c\rangle \mid x\in L\}\) is a sublattice \(L_c\) and it is isomorphic to \(L\), and \(L_c\) is a proper congruence-preserving extension of \(L\).