Bases for existence varieties of strict regular semigroups (Q5952932)

For an e-variety \(\mathcal V\) of regular semigroups let \(\mathcal V'\) be the variety of all regular unary semigroups whose semigroup reducts are in \(\mathcal V\). A basis for the identities of \(\mathcal V'\) is said to strongly determine \(\mathcal V\) [c.f. \textit{T. E. Hall}, Bull. Aust. Math. Soc. 40, No. 1, 59-77 (1989; Zbl 0666.20028)]. The purpose of the paper is to find, for many e-varieties \(\mathcal V\) of strict regular semigroups, (sets of) identities which strongly determine \(\mathcal V\). Reviewer's remarks: (i) There is a different concept of identity (``bi-identity'') which overcomes the deficiencies (which were discussed already in the aforementioned paper of Hall) of the concept of identity used in this paper, and makes the theory totally analogous to the classical theory of varieties of universal algebras [see \textit{K. Auinger}, J. Algebra 166, No. 3, 630-650 (1994; Zbl 0806.20052)]. (ii) At the end of the paper, several problems are raised, some of which can be settled immediately: (1) None of the classes \({\mathcal C}e\), \((\mathcal{AC})\), \(({\mathcal C}o{\mathcal C})\) is an e-variety because none of them is closed under taking morphic images; indeed, the bifree locally inverse semigroup is combinatorial and therefore belongs to all of these (see the aforementioned paper of the reviewer) but the bifree completely simple semigroup (a morphic image of the former) does not. (2) To the second question, the answer is ``no'': take a suitable ideal extension (the one which is \(E\)-unitary) of the two element cyclic group by the non-zero part of the five element Brandt semigroup \(B_2\).