T. A. Rice
Greedy quasigroups
The paper investigates the quasigroup Qs
constructed on the well-ordered set of natural numbers by placing
a number $s$ known as the seed in the top left-hand
corner of the body of the multiplication table, and then
completing the Latin square using the greedy algorithm that
chooses the least possible entry at each stage. The initial
motivation comes from the theory of combinatorial games, where
Q0 gives the usual nim sum, while Q1 gives the corresponding
sums for positions in misere nim. The multiplication groups of
these quasigroups are analyzed. The alternating group of the
natural numbers is a subgroup of the multiplication groups. It is
shown that these so-called greedy quasigroups Qs are
mutually non-isomorphic. The quasigroup Q1 is subdirectly
irreducible. For s>1, the greedy quasigroups Qs are simple,
and for s>2 they are rigid, possessing no non-trivial
automorphisms. Indeed in this case the endomorphism monoid
contains just the identity and a single constant. The
subquasigroup structures of the Qs are also determined. While
Q0, Q1 have uncountably many subquasigroups, and Q2 has
just one proper, non-trivial subquasigroup, Qs has none for
s>2.