On finite hyperidentity bases for varieties of semigroups

For any varietyV of semigroups, we denote byH(V) the collection of all hyperidentities satisfied byV. It is natural to ask whether, for a givenV, H(V) is finitely based. This question has so far been answered, in the negative, for four varieties of semigroups: for the varieties of rectangular bands and of zero semigroups by the author in 8]; for the variety of semilattices by Penner in 5]; and for the varietyS of all semigroups by Bergman in 1]. In this paper, we show how Bergman's proof may in fact be used to deal with a large class of subvarieties ofS, namely all semigroup varieties except those satisfyingx ² =x ^2+m for somem. As a first step in the investigation of these exceptional varieties, we also present some hyperidentities satisfied by the variety B_1,1 of bands, and, using the same technique, show thatH(V) is not finitely based for any subvarietyV of B_1,1. These proofs all exploit the fact that the particular variety in question has hyperidentities of arbitrarily large arity. We conclude with an example of a variety for which even the collection of hyperidentities containing only one binary operation symbol is not finitely based.Presented by W. Taylor.Research supported by Natural Sciences & Engineering Research Council of Canada.