Notions of Discrimination

Abstract

As an outgrowth of the study of algebraic geometry over groups, discriminating groups were introduced. Many important universal type groups such as Higman's universal group and Thompson's group F were shown to be discriminating. Squarelike groups were then introduced to better capture axiomatic properties of discrimination. In the present article squarelike groups are reinterpreted in terms of discrimination of quasi varieties, and the relationship with an older version of discrimination, termed varietal discrimination here, is studied.