Simplicial geometry of unital lattice-ordered abelian groups. (Q2343345)

This paper is concerned with unital \(\ell\)-groups, that is, lattice ordered abelian groups with a distinguished order unit. These groups are related with \(C^*\)-algebras via Grothendieck's \(K_0\) functor, and with MV-algebras via Mundici's \(\Gamma\) functor. The category \(U_{fp}\) is given by finitely presented unital \(\ell\)-groups with unital \(\ell\)-homomorphisms. This category (Theorem 2.7) is dual to a category \(P_{\mathbb Z}\) of compact rational polyhedra, where morphisms are piecewise linear functions called \(\mathbb Z\)-maps. Theorem 3.1 describes Cartesian products and equalizers in \(P_{\mathbb Z}\), and Theorem 3.2 describes monomorphisms and epimorphisms. Theorem 3.3 characterizes isomorphisms. By using these characterizations, a Cantor-Bernstein-Schröder Theorem is given for polyhedra (Theorem 3.7) and unital \(\ell\)-groups (Corollary 3.8). In Theorem 3.10 it is shown that \(P_{\mathbb Z}\) has finite coproducts and a restricted kind of pushouts. As a corollary 3.11, \(U_{fp}\) is closed under fibered products. Section 4 deals with exact unital \(\ell\)-groups, that is, those whose image under \(\Gamma\) is an exact MV-algebra in the sense of De Jongh: a finitely presented MV-algebra embeddable in a free finitely generated MV-algebra. Exact unital \(\ell\)-groups are characterized geometrically in Theorem 4.10 as groups of piecewise linear functions on polyhedra having a restricted kind of triangulation, then algebraically in Theorem 4.15, in terms of bases, and logically in Theorem 4.18, in terms of admissible rules in Łukasiewicz logic.