Representable posets

Abstract

© 2016 Elsevier B.V. A poset is representable if it can be embedded in a field of sets in such a way that existing finite meets and joins become intersections and unions respectively (we say finite meets and joins are preserved). More generally, for cardinals α and β a poset is said to be (α,β)-representable if an embedding into a field of sets exists that preserves meets of sets smaller than α and joins of sets smaller than β. We show using an ultraproduct/ultraroot argument that when 2≤α,β≤ω the class of (α,β)-representable posets is elementary, but does not have a finite axiomatization in the case where either α or β=ω. We also show that the classes of posets with representations preserving either countable or all meets and joins are pseudoelementary.