A note on blocks of skeleton tolerances. (Q397016)

A \textit{tolerance relation} (or shortly \textit{tolerance}) of a lattice \(L\) is a reflexive and symmetric binary relation compatible with the operations of \(L\). The \textit{skeleton tolerance} of a finite lattice \(L\) is the smallest tolerance of \(L\) whose transitive closure is the total relation \(L^2\). A \textit{block} of a tolerance \(T\) of \(L\) is a maximal subset \(X\) of \(L\) such that every two elements of \(X\) are in the relation \(T\). Every block of a tolerance of \(L\) is a convex sublattice of \(L\) (hence an interval of \(L\) in case that \(L\) is finite). The goal of the paper is to characterize lattices which can be blocks of the skeleton tolerance of a finite lattice. In order to reach this goal, the authors introduce the following concept: A finite lattice \(L\) (with least element \(0\) and greatest element \(1\)) is called \textit{two-tailed} if \(|L|>2\), \(0\) is meet-irreducible and \(1\) is join-irreducible. The main result is the following Theorem: A finite lattice \(L\) is a block of the skeleton tolerance of a finite lattice if and only if \(L\) is not two-tailed. -- Moreover, some additional results are given for finite distributive lattices.