Congruence relations on lattices of recursively enumerable sets

Abstract

Let {We}e∈ω be a standard enumeration of the recursively enumerable (r. e.) subsets of ω = {0, 1, 2, …}. The lattice of recursively enumerable sets, is the structure ({We}e∈ω, ∪, ∩). is the sublattice of consisting of the recursive sets.Suppose is a lattice of subsets of ω. ≡ is said to be a congruence relation on if ≡ is an equivalence relation on and if for all U, U′ ∈ and V, V ∈ , if U ≡ U′ and V ≡ V′ then U ∪ U′ ≡ V ∪ V′ and U ∩ U′ ≡ V ∩ V′. [U] = {V ∈ | V ≡ U} is the equivalence class of U. If ≡ is a congruence relation on , the elements of the quotient lattice / ≡ are the equivalence classes of ≡. [U] ∪ [V] is defined as [U ∪ V], and [U] ∩ [V] is defined as [U ∩ V].The quotient lattices of (or of some sublattice ) correspond naturally with the congruence relations which give rise to them, and in turn the congruence relations of sublattices of can be characterized in part by their computational complexity. The aim of the present paper is to characterize congruence relations in some of the most important complexity classes.