Reducibility of \(n\)-ary semigroups: from quasitriviality towards idempotency (Q2118358)

Denote \({x_1},\dots, {x_n}\) as \(x_1^n\). An \(n\)-ary (\(n \geqslant 2\)) operation \(F:{X^n} \to X\) on an nonempty set \(X\) is associative iff \(F(x_1^{i - 1},F(x_i^{i + n - 1}),x_{i + n}^{2n - 1}) = F(x_1^i,F(x_{i + 1}^{i + n}),x_{i + n + 1}^{2n - 1})\) for all \(x_1^{2n - 1} \in X\), \(1 \leqslant i \leqslant n - 1\); \((X,F)\) is then called \(n\)-ary semigroup. The operation \(F\) is reducible to binary operation \(G:{X^2} \to X\) if there are \({G^m}:{X^{m + 1}} \to X\), \(m = 1,\dots ,n - 1\) such that \({G^{n - 1}} = F\), \({G^1} = G\) and \({G^m}(x_1^{m + 1}) = {G^{m - 1}}(x_1^{m - 1}G(x_m^{m + 1}))\) for any \(m \geqslant 2\). Let \({\mathcal F}_k^n\) be the class of associative operations with property: \(F(x_1^n) \in \{ {x_1},\dots ,{x_n}\} \) if at least \(k\) of \({x_i}\)-s are equal. It is shown that \({\mathcal F}_1^n =\dots = {\mathcal F}_{n - 2}^n \subseteq {\mathcal F}_{n - 1}^n \subseteq {\mathcal F}_n^n\) and found conditions for the last two inclusions to be strict.