Natural dualities for varieties of MV-algebras. I (Q5929367)

Introduced by C. C. Chang in the late fifties as the algebraic counterpart of the infinite-valued Łukasiewicz propositional calculus, MV-algebras are an important generalization of Boolean algebras. For background see the monograph: \textit{R. L. O. Cignoli}, \textit{I. M. L. D'Ottaviano} and \textit{D. Mundici}, Algebraic foundations of many-valued reasoning [Trends in Logic, Studia Logica Library, Vol. 7. Dordrecht: Kluwer Academic Publishers (2000; Zbl 0937.06009)]. As proved by Komori, every proper subvariety of MV algebras is generated by finitely many chains. The author presents a natural duality, in the sense of Davey and Werner, for each variety \(V(L_n)\) generated by an \(n\)-element chain \(L_n\) (in other words, \(V(L_n)=\) Grigolia's \(\text{MV}_n\) algebras). His duality result, Theorem 2.1, is similar to Theorem 1 in \textit{R. Cignoli's} abstract ``Natural dualities for the algebras of Łukasiewicz finite-valued logics'' [Bull. Symb. Log. 2, No. 2, 218 (1996)] and, as noted by the author, is a particular case of a general result of \textit{D. M. Clark} and \textit{B. A. Davey} [see their monograph: Natural dualities for the working algebraist, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge (1998; Zbl 0910.08001), Proposition 3.3.14]. The rest of the paper contains some coproduct calculations, leading to the well-known formula for finitely generated free algebras in \(V(L_n)\). Injective members are characterized, and a result by Di Nola and Lettieri is revisited.