Representable posets

Abstract

A poset is representable if it can be embedded in a field of sets in such a way that existing finite meets and joins become intersections and unions respectively (we say finite meets and joins are preserved). More generally, for cardinals α and β a poset is said to be $(\alpha ,\beta )$-representable if an embedding into a field of sets exists that preserves meets of sets smaller than α and joins of sets smaller than β. We show using an ultraproduct/ultraroot argument that when $2\le \alpha ,\beta \le \omega$ the class of $(\alpha ,\beta )$-representable posets is elementary, but does not have a finite axiomatization in the case where either α or $\beta =\omega$. We also show that the classes of posets with representations preserving either countable or all meets and joins are pseudoelementary.