Invariants of simple algebras

We determine the group of invariants with values in Galois cohomology with coefficients of central simple algebras of degree at most 8 and exponent dividing 2. The work of A. S. Merkurjev has been supported by the NSF grant DMS #0652316.     

On left conjugacy closed loops in which the left multiplication group is normal

A loopQ is said to be left conjugacy closed (LCC) if the left translations form a set of permutations that is closed under conjugation. This papers investigates those LCC loops where the group generated by left translations is normal in the group generated by both left and right translations.     

On left conjugacy closed loops with a nucleus of index two

A loop Q is said to be left conjugacy closed (LCC) if the left translations form a set of permutations that is closed under conjugation. Loops in which the left and middle nuclei coincide and are of index 2 are necesarilly LCC, and they are constructed in the paper explicitly. LCC loops Q with the right nucleus G of index 2 offer a larger diversity, but that is associated with the level of commutativity of G (amongst others, the centre of G has to be nontrivial). On the other hand, for each m ≥ 2 one can construct an LCC loop Q of order 2m in such a way that its left nucleus is trivial, and the right nucleus if of order m. If Q is involutorial, then it is a Bol loop. Work supported by institutional grant MSM 113200007 and by Grant Agency of Czech Republic, Grant 201/02/0594. The paper was written while the author was visiting Universitaet Hamburg in January 2004.     

On the unipotent characters of the Ree groups of type <Emphasis Type="Italic">G</Emphasis><Subscript>2</Subscript>

This note is concerned with the unipotent characters of the Ree groups of type G ₂. We determine the roots of unity associated by Lusztig and Digne-Michel to each unipotent character for and prove that the Fourier matrix of defined by Geck and Malle satisfies a conjecture of Digne-Michel. Our main tool is the Shintani descent of Ree groups of type G ₂.     

Congruences on equivalence algebras

A certain class of atomic, semimodular, semisimple partition lattices is studied. It is shown that this class is precisely the class of congruence lattices of equivalence algebras. The first author is granted by project POCTI-ISFL-1-143 of the “Centro de álgebra da Universidade de Lisboa”, supported by FCT and FEDER.     

On the volume of a tilting module

We consider a finite dimensional k-algebraA and associate to each tilting module a cone in the Grothendieck groupK ₀ of finitely generated A-modules. We prove that the set of cones associated to tilting modules of projective dimension at most one defines a, not necessarily finite, fan Σ(A). IfA is of finite global dimension, the fan Σ(A) is smooth. Moreover, using the cone of a tilting module, we can associate a volume to each tilting module. Using the fan and the volume, we obtain new proofs for several classical results; we obtain certain convergent sums naturally associated to the algebraA and obtain criteria for the completeness of a list of tilting modules. Finally, we consider several examples. Dedicated to O. Riemenschneider on the occasion of his 65th birthday     

Terms that are self-dual in Boolean algebras but not in MO 2

An absorption law is an identity of the form p = x. The ternary function x+y+z (ring addition) in Boolean algebras satisfies three absorption laws in two variables. If a term satisfies these three identities in a variety, it is called a minority term for that variety. We construct a minority term p for orthomodular lattices such the identity defines Boolean algebras modulo orthomodular lattices. (The dual of p is denoted by .) Consequently, having a unique minority term function characterizes Boolean algebras among orthomodular lattices. Our main result generalizes this example to arbitrary arity and arbitrary consistent sets of 2-variable absorption laws. Presented by J. Berman.     

A homological characterization of piecewise hereditary algebras

Let Λ be a finite dimensional algebra over a field k. We will show here that Λ is piecewise hereditary if and only if its strong global dimension is finite. Dedicated to Otto Kerner on the occasion of his 65th birthday. The second author is supported by a grant from NSA. These results were obtained during a visit of the first author at Syracuse University. He would like to thank the second author for the hospitality during his stay.     

Skew Boolean algebras derived from generalized Boolean algebras

Every skew Boolean algebra S has a maximal generalized Boolean algebra image given by S/ where is the Green’s relation defined initially on semigroups. In this paper we study skew Boolean algebras constructed from generalized Boolean algebras B by a twisted product construction for which . In particular we study the congruence lattice of with an eye to viewing as a minimal skew Boolean cover of B. This construction is the object part of a functor from the category GB of generalized Boolean algebras to the category LSB of left-handed skew Boolean algebras. Thus we also look at its left adjoint functor . This paper was written while the second author was a Visiting Professor in the Department of Education at the University of Cagliari. The facilities and assistance provided by the University and by the Department are gratefully acknowledged.     

Group gradings on diagonal algebras

We describe all group gradings on the diagonal algebra k ⁿ , where k is an arbitrary field. Received: 21 January 2008     

Bifunctional-elementary relation algebras

A relation algebra is bifunctional-elementary if it is atomic and for any atom a, the element a;1;a is the join of at most two atoms, and one of these atoms is bifunctional (an element x is bifunctional if ’). We show that bifunctional-elementary relation algebras are representable. Our proof combines the representation theorems for: pair-dense relation algebras given by R. Maddux; relation algebras generated by equivalence elements provided corresponding relativizations are representable by S. Givant; and strong-elementary relation algebras dealt with in our earlier work. It turns out that atomic pair-dense relation algebras are bifunctional elementary, showing that our theorem generalizes the representation theorem of atomic pair-dense relation algebras. The problem is still open whether the related classes of rather elementary, functional-elementary, and strong functional-elementary relation algebras are representable. Received July 15, 2007; accepted in final form March 17, 2008.     

On the semidistributivity of elements in weak congruence lattices of algebras and groups

Weak congruence lattices and semidistributive congruence lattices are both recent topics in universal algebra. This motivates the main result of the present paper, which asserts that a finite group G is a Dedekind group if and only if the diagonal relation is a join-semidistributive element in the lattice of weak congruences of G. A variant in terms of subgroups rather than weak congruences is also given. It is pointed out that no similar result is valid for rings. An open problem and some results on the join-semidistributivity of weak congruence lattices are also included. This research of the second and third authors was partially supported by Serbian Ministry of Science and Environment, Grant No. 144011 and by the Provincial Secretariat for Science and Technological Development, Autonomous Province of Vojvodina, grant ”Lattice methods and applications”.     

Automorphisms of blocks of group algebras and character values

Let G be a finite group, χ an irreducible complex character of G and A(χ) the block ideal of the group algebra ℚG relatedℴ χ. The aim of this paper is to study the group Aut (A(χ)) of all ring (or ℚ-algebra) automorphisms of A(χ). Especially we are interested in the existence of subgroups of Aut (A(χ)), which are isomorphic to a given subgroup Γ of the Galois group of the field of character values ℚ(χ) over the rationals. In this context we prove some results related to character values.     

Convexities of partial monounary algebras

In the present paper we prove that the collection of all convexities of partial monounary algebras is finite; namely, it has exactly 23 elements. Further, we show that for each element there exists a subset of such that is generated by and card . This work was supported by the Science and Technology Assistance Agency under the contract No. APVT-20-004104. Supported by Grant VEGA 1/3003/06.     

A class of simple proper Bol loops

The existence of finite simple non-Moufang Bol loops has long been considered to be one of the main open problems in the theory of loops and quasigroups. In this paper, we present a class of simple proper Bol loops. This class contains finite and new infinite simple proper Bol loops. This paper was written during the author’s Marie Curie Fellowship MEIF-CT-2006-041105 at the University of Würzburg (Germany).     

Undecidability of the centers of groups and group algebras

Let k ≧ 3 be an integer or k = ∞ and let K be a field. There is a recursive family of finitely presented groups G_n over a fixed finite alphabet with solvable word problem such that

2-uniform congruences in majority algebras and a closure operator

A ternary term m(x, y, z) of an algebra is called a majority term if the algebra satisfies the identities m(x, x, y) = x, m(x, y, x) = x and m(y, x, x) = x. A congruence α of a finite algebra is called uniform if all of its blocks (i.e., classes) have the same number of elements. In particular, if all the α-blocks are two-element then α is said to be a 2-uniform congruence. If all congruences of A are uniform then A is said to be a uniform algebra. Answering a problem raised by Gr?tzer, Quackenbush and Schmidt [2], Kaarli [3] has recently proved that uniform finite lattices are congruence permutable. In connection with Kaarli’s result, our main theorem states that for every finite algebra A with a majority term any two 2-uniform congruences of A permute. Examples show that we can say neither “algebra” instead of “algebra with a majority term”, nor “3-uniform” instead of “2-uniform”. Given two nonempty sets A and B, each relation gives rise to a pair of closure operators, which are called the Galois closures on A and B induced by ρ. Galois closures play an important role in many parts of algebra, and they play the main role in formal concept analysis founded by Wille [4]. In order to prove our main theorem, we introduce a pair of smaller closure operators induced by ρ. These closure operators will hopefully find further applications in the future. Dedicated to the memory of Kazimierz Głazek Presented by E. T. Schmidt. Received November 29, 2005; accepted in final form May 23, 2006. This research was partially supported by the NFSR of Hungary (OTKA), grant no. T049433 and T037877.     

On bianchi identities

Résumé  Après un bref bilan concernant preuves et applications des identités de Bianchi, nous complétons l’approche récentevia la naturalité, due à Kazdan, en l’étendant des connexions riemanniennes aux connexions linéaires; puis nous proposons pour ces connexions une nouvelle approche basée seulement sur l’identitéd ²=0 appliquée aux 1-formes.

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Chargé de recherches, UMR 6621 du CNRS.     

On the variety question for wRRA

In this paper we consider a question of Jónsson [6] whether the class of weakly representable relation algebras is a variety. We prove that the class is closed under taking homomorphic images provided that a certain embedding condition obtains. Received June 21, 2005; accepted in final form October 17, 2006.