Special reflexive graphs in modular varieties (Q2577682)

A variety of universal algebras is congruence modular if all algebras have a modular lattice of congruences. The authors investigate a special kind of reflexive graph in any congruence modular variety: when the variety is Mal'tsev these special reflexive graphs are exactly the internal groupoids, when the variety is distributive they are the internal reflexive relations. They use these internal structures to give some characterizations of Mal'tsev, distributive and arithmetical varieties.