Globals of pseudovarieties of commutative semigroups: the finite basis problem, decidability and gaps

Abstract

Whereas pseudovarieties of commutative semigroups are known to be finitely based, the globals of monoidal pseudovarieties of commutative semigroups are shown to be finitely based (or of finite vertex rank) if and only if the index is 0, 1 or omega. Nevertheless, on these pseudovarieties, the operation of taking the global preserves decidability. Furthermore, the gaps between many of these globals are shown to be big in the sense that they contain chains which are order isomorphic to the reals.