Binary relations and reduced hypergroups. (Q932677)

Let \(H\) be a nonempty set, \(\mathcal P(H)^*\) the family of nonempty subsets of \(H\) and \(\cdot\) a hyperoperation in \(H\), that is, \(\cdot\colon H\times H\to\mathcal P(H)^*\). J. Jantosciak defined three fundamental equivalence relations on any hypergroupoid \((H,\cdot)\) as follows: Let \(x,y\in H\), then (i) \(x\) and \(y\) are said to be operationally equivalent if \(xa=ya\) and \(ax=ay\), \(\forall a\in H\). (ii) \(x\) and \(y\) are said to be inseparable if for all \(a,b\in H\), \(x\in ab\) iff \(y\in ab\). (iii) \(x\) and \(y\) are said to be essentially indistinguishable if \(x\) and \(y\) are operationally equivalent and inseparable. The last equivalence relation is denoted by \(\sim_e\) and for any \(x\in H\), the equivalence class of \(x\) is represented by \(\widehat x_e\). We say that a hypergroup \((H,\cdot)\) is `reduced' if its essentially indistinguishable classes are trivial, i.e., singletons. \textit{J. Jantosciak} [Algebraic hyperstructures and applications, Proc. 4th Int. Congr., Xanthi/Greece 1990, 119-122 (1991; Zbl 0791.20087)] showed that for any hypergroup \((H,\cdot)\), the quotient hypergroup \((H/\!\sim_e,*)\) is a reduced hypergroup, where the hyperoperation \(*\) is defined by \(\widehat x_e*\widehat y_e=\{\widehat z_e\mid z\in xy\}\). On the other hand, \textit{I. G. Rosenberg} [Ital. J. Pure Appl. Math. 4, 93-101 (1998; Zbl 0962.20055)] has associated a partial hypergroupoid \(\mathbb{H}_\rho=(H,\cdot)\) with a binary relation \(\rho\) defined on a set \(H\), where, for any \(x,y\in H\), \(xy=\{z\in H\mid(x,z)\in\rho\) or \((y,z)\in\rho\}\), and he proved that under certain conditions \(\mathbb{H}_\rho=(H,\cdot)\) is a hypergroup. Then \textit{P. Corsini} and \textit{V. Leoreanu} [Algebra Univers. 43, No. 4, 321-330 (2000; Zbl 1016.20056)] investigated this notion further and derived some results. The paper under review deals with binary relations and reduced hypergroups. The authors present a necessary and sufficient condition such that the hypergroup \(\mathbb{H}_\rho\) associated to a binary relation \(\rho\) is reduced. Moreover, given two binary relations \(\rho\) and \(\sigma\) defined on a set \(H\), they investigate when the hypergroups \(\mathbb{H}_{\rho\cap\sigma}\), \(\mathbb{H}_{\rho\cup\sigma}\) and \(\mathbb{H}_{\rho\sigma}\) are reduced. Finally, they prove that the Cartesian product of two hypergroups is reduced if and only if each of its components is reduced.