Representations of distributive lattice-ordered semigroups with binary relations (Q2277499)

This paper studies the problem of representing (semi) lattice-ordered semigroups by binary relations. Let R be the class of all algebras which are isomorphic to structures whose elements are binary relations together with the operations of union, intersection and composition of relations. It is shown that R is not a variety and that it is not finitely axiomatizable. The variety generated by R is proved to be the class of all distributive lattice-ordered semigroups by showing that every free member of the latter class is representable. More generally, it is proved that every semilattice-ordered semigroup whose semilattice is distributive, is representable as a semigroup of binary relations endowed with the operations of union and composition. The class of all these latter algebras was previously shown by \textit{D. A. Bredihin} and \textit{B. M. Schein} [Colloq. Math. 39, 1-12 (1978; Zbl 0389.06013)] to coincide with the class of all semilattice-ordered semigroups.