Bouligand-Severi tangents in MV-algebras

Abstract

In their recent seminal paper published in the Annals of Pure and Applied Logic, Dubuc and Poveda call an MV-algebra A strongly semisimple if all principal quotients of A are semisimple. All boolean algebras are strongly semisimple, and so are all finitely presented MV-algebras. We show that for any 1-generator MV-algebra semisimplicity is equivalent to strong semisimplicity. Further, a semisimple 2-generator MV-algebra A is strongly semisimple if and only if its maximal spectral space m(A) does not have any rational Bouligand-Severi tangents at its rational points. In general, when A is finitely generated and m(A) has a Bouligand-Severi tangent then A is not strongly semisimple.