A Property of Lattices of Sublattices Closed Under Taking Relative Complements and Its Connection to 2-Distributivity

Abstract

For a lattice L of finite length n, let RCSub(L) be the collection consisting of the empty set and those sublattices of L that are closed under taking relative complements. That is, a subset X of L belongs to RCSub(L) if and only if X is join-closed, meet-closed, and whenever {a, x, b} ⊆ S, y ∈ L, x ∧ y = a, and x ∨ y = b, then y ∈ S. We prove that (1) the poset RCSub(L) with respect to set inclusion is lattice of length n + 1, (2) if RCSub(L) is a ranked lattice and L is modular, then L is 2-distributive in András P. Huhn’s sense, and (3) if L is distributive, then RCSub(L) is a ranked lattice.