Factorizations of skew braces (Q2332940)

The authors study skew left braces that admit a factorization, and discuss their relation with non-trivial decompositions of the set-theoretical non-degenerate solutions \(R: X\times X \to X\times X\) of the Yang-Baxter equation \[ (R\times id_X)\circ (id_X \times R) \circ (R\times id_X) = (id_X \times R) \circ (R\times id_X)\circ (id_X \times R), \] where \(X\) is a non-empty set and \(R\) is a map. The solution \(R: X\times X \to X\times X\) is defined to be non-degenerate if \(R(x,y) = R(\sigma_x(y), \sigma_y(x))\), for all \(x,y\in X\), where \(\sigma_x, \sigma_y:X \to X\) are permutations of the set \(X\). We recall that a skew left brace is a triple \((A, +, \circ)\), where \((A, +)\) and \((A, \circ)\) are groups (not necessarily abelian) such that the compatibility equation holds \(a\circ(b+c) = a\circ b - a + a\circ c\), for all \(a,b,c\in A\). The skew left brace \((A, +, \circ)\) is defined to be abelian, if its additive group \((A, +)\) is commutative. This means that a skew left brace \((A, +, \circ)\) of abelian type is just the brace in the sense of \textit{W. Rump} [J. Algebra 307, No. 1, 153--170 (2007; Zbl 1115.16022)]. Braces provide a useful algebraic framework to work with set-theoreitical solutions of the Yang-Baxter equation. To see it, we recall from \textit{A. Smoktunowicz} and \textit{L. Vendramin} [J. Comb. Algebra 2, No. 1, 47--86 (2018; Zbl 1416.16037)] that, given a skew left brace \((A, +, \circ)\), the map \[ R_A: A\times A \to A\times A, \quad R_A(a,b)= (-a + a\circ b, \, (-a + a\circ b)' \circ a \circ b) \] is a non-degenerate set-theoretical solution of the Yang-Baxter equation, where \((-a + a\circ b)' \) means the inverse of \( -a + a\circ b \) with respect to the circle operation \(\circ\). In the paper under review, the authors define and study factorizations of skew left braces through strong left ideals (defined in the paper). Among others, they prove an analogue of the well known Ito's theorem asserting that if a skew left brace \(A\) admits a non-trivial factorization \(A= B+C\) through strong left ideals \(B\) and \(C\) that are trivial as skew left brace then \(A\) is right nilpotent of class at most three and, in particular, the skew left brace \(A\) is meta-trivial. The result is applied to the study of retractability problem of involutive non-degenerate set-theoretical solutions of the the Yang-Baxter equation. In the final part of the article the authors present a classification of all skew left braces that contain no non-trivial proper characteristic ideals.