Combinatorial solutions to the reflection equation (Q2292851)

Following Drinfeld's suggestion the study of set-theoretic solutions of the Yang-Baxter equation was initiated by Etingof, Schedler and Soloviev, and Gateva-Ivanova and Van den Bergh in the late 90's. Recall that a pair \((X,r)\), where \(X\) is a non-empty set and \(r\colon X\times X\to X\times X: (x,y)\mapsto (\sigma_x(y),\tau_y(x))\) is a bijective map, is called a set-theoretic solution of the Yang-Baxter Equation (YBE) provided \(r_1r_2r_1=r_2r_1r_2\), where \(r_1=r\times{\operatorname{id}}\) and \(r_2={\operatorname{id}}\times r\). It was first observed by \textit{W. Rump} [J. Algebra 307, No. 1, 153--170 (2007; Zbl 1115.16022)] that Jacobson radical rings or, more generally, braces produce highly non-trivial solutions of the YBE, which are universal in the sense that each non-degenerate involutive solution is isomorphic to a restriction of a solution constructed from a brace. To study non-involutive solutions \textit{L. Guarnieri} and the second author [Math. Comput. 86, No. 307, 2519--2534 (2017; Zbl 1371.16037)] showed that one has to replace braces by skew braces. These algebraic structures still share several properties with braces and with Jacobson radical rings. Recently, the so-called reflection equation, which first appeared in the study of quantum scattering, has received considerable interest. For a map \(k\colon X\to X\) and \((X,r)\) as above, the set-theoretic reflection equation is \(rk_2rk_2=k_2rk_2r\), where \(k_2={\operatorname{id}}\times k\). Let \((X,r)\) be a non-degenerate set-theoretic solution the YBE and let \(\mathcal{G}(X,r)=\langle\sigma_x \mid x\in X\rangle\) be its permutation group. A map \(k: X\rightarrow X\) is said to be \(\mathcal{G}(X,r)\)-equivariant if \(k(gx) = gk(x)\) for all \(g \in \mathcal{G}(X,r) \) and \(x \in X\), i.e., \(k\sigma_x = \sigma_x k\) for all \(x \in X\). If, furthermore, \(r\) is involutive then in the first part of the paper it is proven each \(\mathcal{G}(X,r)\)-equivariant map \(k\colon X\to X\) is a reflection of \((X,r)\). In the next sections, using ring-theoretical methods and techniques coming from the theory of braces and nilpotent rings, the authors construct new families of (set-theoretic) solutions of the reflection equation. The authors also explore reflections associated to solutions of the YBE constructed from factorizable groups. Finally, in the last section, parameter depending solutions of the YBE and reflection equation are studied.