A theorem of Mumford and Ramanujam for universal algebras

Abstract

A well-known result in quasigroup theory says that an associative quasigroup is a group, i.e. in quasigroups, associativity forces the existence of an identity element. The converse is, of course, far from true, as there are many, many non-associative loops. However, a remarkable theorem due to David Mumford and C.P. Ramanujam says that any projective variety having a binary morphism admitting a two-sided identity must be a group. Motivated by this result, we define a universal algebra (A; F) to be an MR-algebra if whenever a binary term function m(x, y) in the algebra admits a two-sided identity, then the reduct (A; m(x, y)) must be associative. Here we give some non-trivial varieties of quasigroups, groups, rings, fields and lattices which are MR-algebras. For example, every MR-quasigroup must be isotopic to a group, MR-groups are exactly the nilpotent groups of class 2, while commutative rings and complemented lattices are MR-algebras if and only if they are Boolean.