Varieties of posets (Q2494392)

The authors introduce the notion of homomorphism and of a congruence relation for arbitrary partially ordered set (poset). Let \(P\) be a poset and \(Q\) a subposet of \(P\). Then \(Q\) is said to be an \(l\)-subposet of \(P\) if the identity map \(Q\to P\) is a homomorphism. Now, a nonempty class \(V\) of posets is called a variety of posets if it is closed under homomorphic images, \(l\)-subposets and their isomorphic copies, and under direct products and their isomorphic copies. The system of all varieties of posets is a complete lattice \(L\) that has exactly two atoms, namely the variety \(A\) of all antichains and the variety \(D\) of all distributive lattices. Every variety of posets different from the least one and \(A\) contains \(D\). The variety \(A\vee D\) is the unique cover of \(A\) in \(L\). Varieties of lattices (and varieties of multilattices) form an ideal in \(L\).