CRITICAL POINTS OF PAIRS OF VARIETIES OF ALGEBRAS

Abstract

For a class [Formula: see text] of algebras, denote by Conc[Formula: see text] the class of all (∨, 0)-semilattices isomorphic to the semilattice ConcA of all compact congruences of A, for some A in [Formula: see text]. For classes [Formula: see text] and [Formula: see text] of algebras, we denote by [Formula: see text] the smallest cardinality of a (∨, 0)-semilattices in Conc[Formula: see text] which is not in Conc[Formula: see text] if it exists, ∞ otherwise. We prove a general theorem, with categorical flavor, that implies that for all finitely generated congruence-distributive varieties [Formula: see text] and [Formula: see text], [Formula: see text] is either finite, or ℵn for some natural number n, or ∞. We also find two finitely generated modular lattice varieties [Formula: see text] and [Formula: see text] such that [Formula: see text], thus answering a question by J. Tůma and F. Wehrung.