Orderings on semirings (Q809167)

All semirings \((S,+,\cdot)\) considered in this paper have commutative addition, an absorbing zero 0 and an identity 1. A preordering of a skew field K is defined as subsemiring T of K satisfying -1\(\not\in T\) and \(Squ(K)=\{x^ 2|\) \(x\in K\}\subseteq T\). If additionally \(T\cup - T=K\) holds, T is called an ordering of K. These concepts have been generalized to commutative rings [cf. \textit{T. Y. Lam}, Rocky Mt. J. Math. 14, 767-814 (1984; Zbl 0577.14016)]: Replace K by R and add that \({\mathfrak p}=T\cap -T\) has to be a prime ideal of R for an ordering T of a ring R. [Remark: Whereas each preordering of a skew field K is the positive cone of a partial order on K, and the concept ``ordering of K'' coincides with that of ``positive cone of a linear order of K'', these statements are in general not true for their generalizations to rings, not even in the case \({\mathfrak p}=(0).]\) The author gives the following generalization for a semiring S with commutative multiplication, where we write -a iff \(a+x=0\) has a (clearly unique) solution \(x=-a\in S\), and -P for \(\{\)-p\(|\) \(p\in P\) and -p\(\in S\}\). Then a subsemiring P of S is called a preordering of S if Squ(S)\(\subseteq P\) and -1\(\in S\Rightarrow -1\not\in P\). If additionally \(P\cup -P=S\) and ab\(\in P\cap -P\Rightarrow a\in P\vee b\in P\) hold, P is called an ordering of S. With these concepts, the following results (which generalize the corresponding ones for rings) are proved: A maximal preordering of a semiring S is an ordering of S. A semiring S has an ordering iff there are no elements \(s_ i\in S\) satisfying \(1+\sum s^ 2_ i=0\). If S has an ordering P, then \(N_ P=P\cap -P\) defines a congruence class semiring \(\bar S=S/N_ P\) such that the image \(\bar P\) of P in \(\bar S\) satisfies \(\bar P\cap -\bar P=(0)\).