On irreducible n-ary quasigroups with reducible retracts.

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Publication:2472844



Abstract: An n-ary operation q:A^n->A is called an n-ary quasigroup of order |A| if in x_0=q(x_1,...,x_n) knowledge of any n elements of x_0,...,x_n uniquely specifies the remaining one. An n-ary quasigroup q is permutably reducible if q(x_1,...,x_n)=p(r(x_{s(1)},...,x_{s(k)}),x_{s(k+1)},...,x_{s(n)}) where p and r are (n-k+1)-ary and k-ary quasigroups, s is a permutation, and 1<k<n. For even n we construct a permutably irreducible n-ary quasigroup of order 4r such that all its retracts obtained by fixing one variable are permutably reducible. We use a partial Boolean function that satisfies similar properties. For odd n the existence of a permutably irreducible n-ary quasigroup such that all its (n-1)-ary retracts are permutably reducible is an open question; however, there are nonexistence results for 5-ary and 7-ary quasigroups of order 4. Keywords:n-ary quasigroups, n-quasigroups, reducibility, Seidel switching, two-graphs


Let \((\Sigma,Q)\), where \(Q\colon\Sigma^n\to\Sigma\), be an \(n\)-ary quasigroup of order \(|\Sigma|\). \(Q\) is called (permutably) reducible if \(Q(x_1,\dots,x_n)=P(R(x_{\sigma(1)},\dots,x_{\sigma(k)}),x_{\sigma(k+1)},\dots,x_{\sigma(n)})\), where \(P\) and \(R\) are \((n-k+1)\)-ary and \(k\)-ary quasigroup operations, respectively, \(\sigma\) is a permutation, and \(1<k<n\). \(Q\) is called irreducible if it is not reducible. Assigning some fixed values to \(l\leq n\) variables in the predicate \(x_0=Q(x_1,\dots,x_n)\) determines an \((n-l)\)-ary quasigroup called a retract of \(Q\). The question is if there exists an irreducible \(n\)-quasigroup such that all its \((n-1)\)-retracts are reducible. It is shown that in the case of order \(4r\) such \(n\)-quasigroup exists for even \(n\geq 4\). Partial Boolean functions with similar properties are used to investigate the mentioned quasigroup problem.











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