Varieties of Boolean inverse semigroups

Abstract

In an earlier work, the author observed that Boolean inverse semi-groups, with semigroup homomorphisms preserving finite orthogonal joins, form a congruence-permutable variety of algebras, called biases. We give a full description of varieties of biases in terms of varieties of groups: (1) Every free bias is residually finite. In particular, the word problem for free biases is decidable. (2) Every proper variety of biases contains a largest finite symmetric inverse semigroup, and it is generated by its members that are generalized rook matrices over groups with zero. (3) There is an order-preserving, one-to-one correspondence between proper varieties of biases and certain finite sequences of varieties of groups, descending in a strong sense defined in terms of wreath products by finite symmetric groups.