Some results on embeddings of algebras, after de Bruijn and McKenzie (Q2469115)

In 1957, \textit{N. G. de Bruijn} [Nederl. Akad. Wet., Proc., Ser. A 60, 560--569 (1957; Zbl 0079.02802)] showed that the symmetric group Sym\((\Omega )\) on an infinite set \(\Omega \) contains a free subgroup on \(2^{\text{card}(\Omega )}\) generators, and proved a more general statement, a sample consequence of which is that for any group \( A\) of \text{card}inality \(\leq \text{card}(\Omega )\), the group Sym\((\Omega )\) contains a coproduct of \(2^{\text{card}(\Omega )\text{ }}\)copies of \(A,\) not only in the variety of all groups, but in any variety of groups to which \(A\) belongs. In this paper, his key lemma is generalized to an arbitrary variety of algebras \(\mathbf{V},\) and formulated as a statement about functors \(\mathbf{Set}\rightarrow \mathbf{V}.\) From this one easily obtains analogs of the results stated above with group and Sym\((\Omega )\) replaced by monoid and the monoid \(\text{Self}(\Omega)\) of endomaps of \(\Omega\), by associative \(K\)-algebra and the \(K\)-algebra \(\text{End}_{K}(V)\) of endomorphisms of a \(K\)-vector-space \(V\) with basis \(\Omega ,\) and by lattice and the lattice Equiv\((\Omega )\) of equivalence relations on \(\Omega\). It is also shown, extending another result from de Bruijn's 1957 paper, that each of \( \text{Sym}(\Omega ),\text{Self}(\Omega )\) and \(\text{End}_{K}(V)\) contains a coproduct of \( 2^{\text{card}(\Omega )\text{ }}\)copies of itself. That paper also gave an example of a group of \text{card}inality \(2^{\text{card}(\Omega )}\) that was not embeddable in Sym\((\Omega ),\) and R. McKenzie subsequently established a large class of such examples.