a solution to dilworths congruence lattice problem：解决问题说明了同余格.pdfVIP

Advances in Mathematics 216 (2007) 610–625 /locate/aim A solution to Dilworth’s congruence lattice problem Friedrich Wehrung LMNO, CNRS UMR 6139, Département de Mathématiques, BP 5186, Université de Caen, Campus 2, 14032 Caen cedex, France Received 7 January 2007; accepted 22 May 2007 Available online 2 June 2007 Communicated by Michael J. Hopkins Dedicated to George Grätzer and Tamás Schmidt Abstract We construct an algebraic distributive lattice D that is not isomorphic to the congruence lattice of any lattice. This solves a long-standing open problem, traditionally attributed to R.P. Dilworth, from the forties. The lattice D has a compact top element and ℵω+1 compact elements. Our results extend to any algebra possessing a congruence-compatible structure of a join-semilattice with a largest element. © 2007 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved. MSC: primary 06B15, 06B10, 06A12; secondary 08A30, 08B10 Keywords: Lattice; Algebraic; Distributive; Congruence; Congruence-compatible; Semilattice; Weakly distributive; Free set 1. Introduction For an algebra L (i.e., a nonempty set with a collection of operations from finite powers of L to L), a congruence of L is an equivalence relation on L compatible with all operations of L. A map f : Ln → L (for some positive integer n) is congruence-compatible, if every congruence of L is a congruence for f . (This occurs, for example, in case f is a polynomial of L, that is, a composition of basic operations of L, allowing elements of L as parameters.) For elements x, y ∈ L, we denote by ΘL (x, y) the least congruence that identifies x with