From \(A\) to \(B\) to \(Z\) (Q2037088)

Consider the five-element semigroups \(A_2\) and \(B_2\), which we describe here briefly by their respective presentations \(\langle a,b \mid aba = a,bab = b,aa = 0, bb=b\rangle\) and \(\langle a,b \mid aba = a,bab = b,aa = bb = 0\rangle\). It is known that the variety generated by \(B_2\) is defined within the variety generated by \(A_2\) by the identity \(x^2y^2\approx y^2x^2\). \textit{E. W. H. Lee} [Stud. Sci. Math. Hung. 49, No. 3, 366--389 (2012; Zbl 1274.20057)] raised the question of whether the same identity also defines the variety of monoids \(\mathbb{V}_m(B_2^1)\) generated by \(B_2^1\) within \(\mathbb{V}_m(A_2^1)\). In the paper under review, the authors prove that this is in some sense spectacularly not the case: there is a continuum of subvarieties of \(\mathbb{V}_m(A_2^1)\) that satisfy the identity \(x^2y^2\approx y^2x^2\) and contain \(B_2^1\). The proof method consists in associating with each 3-uniform hypergraph \(\mathcal H\) a monoid \(M_{\mathcal H}\) whose idempotents commute that lies in \(\mathbb{V}_m(A_2^1)\) if the girth is at least four and in \(\mathbb{V}_m(B_2^1)\) only if \(\mathcal H\) has a majority 2-colouring. The authors further show that \(B_2^1\) embeds in \(M_{\mathcal H}\) and that the varieties generated by \(M_{\mathcal G}\) and \(M_{\mathcal H}\) are incomparable if the hypergraphs \(\mathcal G\) and \(\mathcal H\) satisfy a certain technical condition called \textit{wild incomparability}. The main remaining ingredient is to exhibit an infinite sequence of wildly incomparable hypergraphs of girth at least four that do not admit a majority 2-colouring. The approach further yields that \(\mathbb{V}_m(B_2^1)\) is not defined by a finite number of identities within \(\mathbb{V}_m(A_2^1)\). With more elementary methods, similar results are also proved for the monoids \(B_2^1\) and \(M(\mathbf{z}_\infty)\), which belongs to the variety \(\mathbb{V}_m(B_2^1)\), with the role of the identity \(x^2y^2\approx y^2x^2\) now played by \(x^2y\approx yx^2\). The monoid \(M(\mathbf{z}_\infty)\) is the Rees quotient of the free monoid on the set \(\{x_0,x_1,x_2,\ldots\}\) by the ideal consisting of the words that are not factors of any word in the Zimin sequence defined by \(\mathbf{z}_0=x_0\) and \(\mathbf{z}_{n+1}=\mathbf{z}_nx_{n+1}\mathbf{z}_n\).